Meta Removes 63,000 Instagram Accounts in Nigeria Over Sextortion Scams

Meta announced on Wednesday that it has removed approximately 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria involved in financial sexual extortion scams, primarily targeting adult men in the United States.

Known as "Yahoo boys," Nigerian online fraudsters are infamous for various scams, including posing as individuals in financial distress or as Nigerian princes offering lucrative investment returns.

Meta's statement noted that the removal included a smaller coordinated network of about 2,500 accounts linked to around 20 individuals. These scammers used fake accounts to hide their identities and targeted mainly adult men in the U.S.

In sextortion scams, individuals are threatened with the release of compromising photos, real or fake, unless they pay to prevent the disclosure. While most scam attempts were unsuccessful, there were also attempts against minors, which Meta reported to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the U.S.

Meta stated it used new technical signals to help identify sextortion activities. Nigeria's scammers are known for "419 scams," named after the section of the penal code dealing with fraud.

As economic hardships in Nigeria worsen, online scams have proliferated, with scammers operating from various locations, including university dormitories, shanty suburbs, and affluent neighborhoods. Meta also revealed that some accounts were sharing tips for conducting scams, selling scripts and guides, and providing links to collections of photos for creating fake accounts.

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