Meta Removes Over 23,000 Facebook Pages in Sweeping Crackdown on Investment Scams

Meta has said it has removed over 23,000 Facebook pages as part of its ongoing efforts to curb investment scams, aimed at luring people into investing in fraudulent and non-existent opportunities. These pages, the company said, actively promoted scam investment apps and gambling websites using deepfake technology to falsely depict finance content creators, celebrities, and sportspeople in India and Brazil.

“We also continue to look for and block attempts by criminal syndicate-run scam centres to create accounts on our platforms,” said Meta in a statement.

The scammers, the company said, led innocent people to messaging apps for “investment advice” and fake websites that look like the Google Play Store to download suspicious gambling apps.

For more than a year, Meta’s expert teams have identified and suspended over seven million accounts linked to centres endorsing scam-related activities across Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Philippines. “The criminal organisations behind these financial scams target people globally through messaging, dating apps, social media, crypto, and other apps.”

Meta said it has rolled out anti-scam tools to help users stay safe on its platforms, including Facebook Marketplace and Messenger. These include warnings for pre-payments for Marketplace orders in Messenger and the use of facial recognition technology for identity verification for account recovery.

As part of its broader efforts, Meta said it has also shared tips to help users recognise “common investment and payments scams online.” The recommendations include spotting opportunities that promise quick and easy returns with little to no risk on assets such as a company’s shares, cryptocurrency, real estate, or precious metals and coins.

Meta has also advised users to refrain from making payments ahead of the shipment or delivery of a purchased item. “A scammer might have a legitimate-seeming storefront or profile on a reselling platform, like Facebook Marketplace,” said the company. It has also urged users to avoid claims of overpayment or refund requests from strangers on Facebook or WhatsApp.

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