Meta has deleted 63,000 accounts from its platforms over suspected sextortion.
The company said the accounts were operated from Nigeria and targeted rich males in the United States. It said the users of the accounts posed as attractive women and tricked their victims into sending them nude photos.
The nude photos would then be used to blackmail them for money.
Meta’s crackdown on sextortion has included the removal of 200 Facebook pages and 5,700 Facebook groups, all from Nigeria, that were providing tips for conducting such scams, such as scripts for talking with victims. The groups also included links to collections of photos that scammers could use when making fake accounts to catfish victims, Meta said.
“First of all, this goes without saying that financial sextortion is a horrific crime and can have devastating consequences,” said Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of safety, in a call with reporters.
“It’s why we are particularly focused on it right now.”
Some of the Facebook accounts, pages and groups removed by Meta were run by the “Yahoo Boys” – internet fraudsters operating in Nigeria.
Japajantis reported in April that a teenager committed suicide in the United Kingdom after some fraudsters suspected to be Nigerians blackmailed with his nude photos. Dinal De Alwis, originally from Sri Lanka, was said to have been asked to pay £100 (230,000) or risk his nude photos sent to his followers on Snapchat, a social media medium.
In April, an Australian teenager committed suicide over sextortion. The deceased was reportedly involved with an unknown person online he had presumed to be a woman. Things went out of hand after his blackmailers demanded $500 or they would share his nude photos with his family and friends.
