Meta disables over 150,000 accounts in crackdown on south-east Asian scam networks

Meta disabled more than 150,000 accounts and Thai police arrested 21 people in a sweeping international crackdown on south-east Asian criminal scam centers that targeted people around the world. The operation was led by Thailand’s Royal Thai police anti-cyber scam center, alongside the FBI and the US justice department’s scam center strike force, with Meta investigators acting on intelligence shared in real time by law enforcement.

Meta announced new protective tools, including alerts on Facebook for suspicious friend requests and a WhatsApp warning system to flag potentially fraudulent device-linking attempts. One tool aims to detect when a potential Facebook friend shows signs of falsifying profile details—such as operating out of a different country than stated, lacking mutual friends, or being recently created—and gives users options to block or report it.

Thailand

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