Meta Cracks Down On Nigerian ‘Yahoo Boys’ In Massive Sextortion Scam Purge, Bans 63K Accounts

Meta Platforms, Inc. META has taken down approximately 63,000 accounts in Nigeria involved in financial sexual extortion, or sextortion, scams targeting adult men in the United States.

Financial sextortion, a crime without borders, has been fueled in recent years by the rise in activities of loosely organized cybercriminals known as ‘Yahoo Boys’, predominantly operating from Nigeria, specializing in various scam techniques, Meta said in a statement.

“We’ve banned Yahoo Boys under Meta’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy — one of our strictest policies — which means we remove Yahoo Boys’ accounts engaged in this criminal activity whenever we become aware of them,” the software giant said. 

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The firm also removed around 7,200 assets, including 1,300 Facebook accounts, 200 Facebook Pages, and 5,700 Facebook Groups, also based in Nigeria, that were providing tips for conducting scams. 

“We also recently announced that we’ve developed new signals to identify accounts that are potentially engaging in sextortion, and are taking steps to help prevent these accounts from finding and interacting with teens,” Meta said.

In recent years, the social media giant has faced increasing pressure from governments, including lawmakers in its home country of the United States, to address concerns about its executives allegedly disregarding evidence that its platforms harm children, reported Reuters.

Last week, Meta was fined $220 million by Nigeria’s competition watchdog.

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) revealed that Meta violated local consumer, data protection, and privacy laws by sharing data on its social platforms without user consent, per a Reuters report.

Additionally, Meta was accused of abusing its market dominance with exploitative privacy policies and treating Nigerians differently compared to users in jurisdictions with similar regulations.

According to Benzinga Pro, META stock has gained over 60% in the past year. Investors can gain exposure to the stock via Direxion Daily META Bull 2X Shares METU and Vanguard Communication Services ETF VOX.

Price Action: META shares closed lower by 5.61% to $461.27 on Wednesday.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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