By Naveen Athrappully
Contributing Writer
Meta has identified and banned more than 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts linked to scam operations during the first half of 2025, the tech giant said in a Tuesday statement.
“Some of the most prolific sources of scams are criminal scam centers, often fueled by forced labor and operated by organized crime primarily in Southeast Asia,” it said. “We proactively detected and took down accounts before scam centers were able to operationalize them.”
Ranging from pyramid schemes to crypto investments, fraudsters use multiple platforms to manipulate targets. For instance, a scam may begin with a text message or on a dating app, which then shifts to social media, private messaging apps, and eventually crypto or payment platforms.
The malicious actors move victims through different platforms to “ensure that any one service has only a limited view into the entire scam, making it more challenging to detect,” Meta said.
In Meta’s statement, the company mentioned working with OpenAI to disrupt such scam efforts.
OpenAI reported activities originating in Cambodia where scammers used ChatGPT to create text messages containing links to WhatsApp chats.
Targets who received the messages were then directed to Telegram, where they were offered money to like TikTok videos. The scammers asked the targets to deposit money into crypto accounts after enticing them with potential earnings, Meta said.
To protect users from scams, the company is introducing several new features.
This includes a group messaging feature that notifies users when added to a WhatsApp group by an unknown individual. The feature will include information on the group and allow users to exit without having to look at the chats.
Meta said it was looking for ways to caution users when they start a chat with people not in their contacts.
“We encourage you to pause, question, and verify, before responding to a suspicious or unusual message, especially if it’s from a number you don’t know promising fast money,” the company said.
Meta has previously taken actions against scam accounts.
On Nov. 21, the company said it took down more than 2 million accounts linked to scam centers in Cambodia, Laos, Burma (also known as Myanmar), the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates last year.
This crackdown targeted criminal organizations running “pig butchering” scams, which involve fraudsters creating trusted relations with targets to dupe them into transferring funds in an investment scheme, often using cryptocurrencies.
‘Losing Their Life’s Savings’
In an April 24 statement, the FBI said an annual report from its Internet Crime Complaint Center revealed that the agency received 859,532 complaints of suspected internet crimes in 2024, with financial losses amounting to $16 billion, up by 33 percent from the previous year.
According to the report, 147,127 complaints were made by people aged over 60, who suffered $4.88 billion in losses. Complaints from this group were up 46 percent from 2023, with losses rising by 43 percent.
The average loss by older adults stood at $83,000, with 7,500 complainants reporting losing more than $100,000, according to the report.
In August 2024, U.S. Attorney Michael Easley of the Eastern District of North Carolina said investigators had seized about $5 million worth of cryptocurrency that scammers stole from U.S. citizens through pig butchering schemes.
“Americans are losing their life’s savings to investment frauds as funds are being rapidly transferred to cryptocurrency accounts overseas,” Easley said.
“In this case, one victim lost his entire individual retirement account to a scam. We are clawing back every dollar we can, even when criminals are located abroad. We are determined to seize their illegal proceeds and return money to the victims.”
In May, the Department of Justice announced charges against two Chinese nationals in a crypto scam that laundered more than $73 million via pig butchering schemes.
Other types of fraudulent activities are also on the rise. In a Thursday statement, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a warning about impersonation scams.
There has been a “more than four-fold increase since 2020 in reports from older adults who say they lost $10,000 or more—sometimes their entire life savings—to scammers who impersonate trusted government agencies or businesses,” the FTC said.
The scammers convince targets to transfer money to protect it from purported threats, only to eventually steal the funds, it said.
