Meta has announced a significant crackdown on a notorious sextortion group operating out of Nigeria, resulting in the removal of approximately 70,000 profiles, Pages, and groups from Facebook and Instagram. This effort also includes enhanced measures to prevent their return.
The group, known as “Yahoo Boys,” originally engaged in the old “Nigerian Prince” scams but has recently shifted to romance scams. They create fake profiles to lure targets into sharing money or personal information, and in this latest move by Meta, intimate images that are used for extortion.
Meta reported: “We removed around 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria involved in financial sextortion scams. This included a coordinated network of about 2,500 accounts linked to a group of around 20 individuals targeting primarily adult men in the US, using fake accounts to conceal their identities.”
The scale of 63,000 profiles highlights the group’s ability to coordinate efforts to intimidate targets. Additionally, Meta detected a network of about 2,500 accounts using new technical signals and processes, most of which had already been disabled by Meta’s enforcement systems. This investigation helped remove the remaining accounts and provided insights into their techniques to enhance automated detection.
Through this initiative, Meta has gained valuable knowledge on how Yahoo Boys and similar groups operate, potentially improving future prevention efforts. However, as detection systems improve, so do the tactics of these groups, making it an ongoing battle.
Meta also removed 1,300 Facebook profiles and 5,700 groups associated with the Yahoo Boys, which were sharing tips on conducting online scams, including selling scripts and guides for scams and links to photo collections for fake accounts.
Sextortion and romance scams are particularly harmful, targeting vulnerable individuals with false promises.
While all scams exploit weaknesses, these types are especially cruel. It is encouraging to see Meta taking steps to combat them, but the scammers will likely evolve. In the age of AI, new tactics will emerge, and Meta must continue evolving its systems to maintain effective enforcement.
