Meta Removes 63,000 Nigerian Instagram Accounts Over Sextortion Scams Days After FCCPC Fined It $220m For Discriminatory Practices

Meta has removed 63,000 Nigerian Instagram accounts involved in financial sextortion scams. Meta made this known on Wednesday in a statement titled “Combating Financial Sextortion Scams from Nigeria.”

The announcement came days after Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) fined Meta and its WhatsApp platform $220 million for discriminatory practices on Nigerians.

The social media company noted while financial sextortion is a horrific crime that can have devastating consequences, there’s been a growing trend of scammers — largely driven by cybercriminals known as Yahoo Boys — targeting people across the internet, both with these and other types of scams.

According to the company, it has disrupted two sets of accounts affiliated with Yahoo Boys in Nigeria.

First, it removed about 63,000 Instagram accounts accounts directly involved in financial sextortion scams. This included a smaller coordinated network of 2,500 accounts linked to 20 individuals, mainly targeting adult men in the U.S. using fake accounts.

“We found the coordinated network of around 2,500 accounts through a combination of new technical signals we’ve developed to help identify sextorters and in-depth investigations by our expert teams,” Meta said, adding that the majority of the accounts had already been detected and disabled by its enforcement systems.

Second, Meta said it removed about 7,200 assets, including 1,300 Facebook accounts, 200 Facebook Pages, and 5,700 Facebook Groups in Nigeria that provided tips for conducting scams.

These groups offered scripts, guides, and links to photos for fake accounts.

According to the company, its systems have been identifying and automatically blocking attempts from these groups to come back. It continues to strengthen those systems to make them as effective as possible.

It also announced that it has developed new signals to help prevent these accounts from interacting with teens.

Meanwhile, recall that West Africa Weekly recently reported that a scammer was on a rampage using the name of Investigative Journalist and West Africa Weekly’s founder David Hundeyin, to promote an investment scam platform called “Nearest Edge.”

It will also be recalled that Hundeyin, in an X thread, unmasked the culprit, who turned out to be an Israeli targeting African Journalists who have openly criticised Israel for their actions on Palestine.

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