As organized, industrial-scale transnational scamming has grown into a multibillion-dollar global crisis, Meta unveiled new account security protections on Wednesday built to alert users of potentially suspicious activity as early as possible during a scam interaction. Alongside the new safety tools, the company also shared details of a recent collaborative operation with Thai law enforcement that resulted in 21 arrests and Meta removing more than 150,000 user accounts tied to criminal scam compounds across Southeast Asia.
The disruption operation was a cross-agency effort bringing together the Royal Thai Police, the FBI, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency, the Australian Federal Police, and multiple other global law enforcement bodies. It targeted alleged scamming groups that victimize users across dozens of countries, including the U.S., the U.K., and a wide range of Asia-Pacific nations. The new account protections Meta launched this Wednesday include three key updates: expanding the company’s existing Messenger scam detection features to reach more users globally, rolling out new warnings for high-risk activity when a user sets up a new linked device on WhatsApp, and testing new Facebook alerts that flag potentially suspicious friend requests.
“Transnational scam syndicates continue to exploit digital platforms and operate across multiple jurisdictions,” Gregory Kang, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Singapore Police Force, said in a Wednesday statement. “Joint operations like this demonstrate how critical close cooperation between law enforcement agencies and industry partners really is.”
Mainstream social media and messaging platforms have become a key digital meeting ground where online scammers—many of whom are trafficked or forced into labor for these criminal operations—connect with potential victims from around the world. Professionalized “pig butchering” style investment scams, which first boomed across Southeast Asia, have since spread globally, creating more urgency than ever to block and deter fraudulent activity on consumer-facing platforms.
Meta first began speaking publicly about its targeted work against scam compounds at the end of 2024. That year, the company reported it had taken down more than 2 million accounts linked to these illegal operations.
In this Wednesday’s announcement, Meta shared new 2025 figures: the company has already removed 10.9 million Facebook and Instagram accounts “associated with criminal scam centers”, and taken down more than 159 million scam ads across all categories on its platforms. Meta has increasingly faced public backlash for failing to take enough proactive action against scams across its services. A December Reuters report found that billions of scam ads are served on Meta platforms every day, and cited internal Meta estimates suggesting up to 10% of the company’s annual revenue could come from scam advertising. A Meta spokesperson disputed those figures at the time.
Law enforcement agencies across multiple regions have launched a wave of crackdowns on scam compounds in recent months, leading to dozens of arrests and seizures of criminal funds. These operations are not limited to Southeast Asia: for example, Meta noted in February that it provided support for a joint operation by the Nigerian Police Force and the UK National Crime Agency to disrupt an alleged scam center based in Nigeria.
Meta also announced a series of additional anti-scam initiatives on Wednesday. The company is expanding its mandatory advertiser verification program, with a goal that 90% of total ad revenue will come from fully verified advertisers by the end of 2026— a major increase from the current 70% benchmark. Meta says the remaining 10% of unqualified ad revenue will accommodate small local businesses and other low-resource, legitimate entities that only run a small number of ads.
The company also shared that its in-house anti-scam specialists have built new AI-powered detection systems to flag more cases where scammers impersonate brands, celebrities, or other public figures. These systems are also designed to catch more “deceptive links” that scammers use to trick targets into visiting malicious websites.
The global scamming industry and ecosystem has grown and matured to such an extent that no single platform or government can solve the problem on its own. But experts have consistently emphasized to WIRED in recent years that Meta’s platforms are a key battleground, where improved detection and defenses could significantly raise the barrier to entry for scammers trying to reach new victims.
As Chris Sonderby, Meta Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, put it in a statement on Wednesday: “we will continue to invest in technology and partnerships to stay ahead of these adversaries.”
