Meta said Wednesday it had removed about 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria that were engaging in sexual extortion and had taken down thousands of Facebook groups and pages that were trying to organize, recruit and train new scammers.
Sexual extortion , or sextortion , involves persuading someone to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public if the victim does not pay money or obtain sexual favors .
Recent high-profile cases include two Nigerian brothers who pleaded guilty to sexually extorting teenage boys and young men in Michigan , one of whom committed suicide, and a Virginia deputy sheriff who sexually extorted and kidnapped a 15-year-old girl.
Sextortion cases have increased in recent years, particularly driven by a loosely organized group called the Yahoo Boys , which operates primarily out of Nigeria , Meta said. The company added that it had applied its policy on “dangerous organizations and individuals” to remove Facebook accounts and groups run by the group.
“Because they’re motivated by money, they can target indiscriminately ,” said Antigone Davis, global head of security at Meta. “In other words, it’s a bit of a scattergun approach: send lots of requests to individuals and see who can respond.”
In January, the FBI warned of a “significant increase” in sextortion cases targeting children. The victims are primarily boys between the ages of 14 and 17, but the FBI said any child can become a victim.
Meta said his investigation found that the majority of the scammers’ attempts were unsuccessful and that they primarily targeted adult males in the United States, but added that “some” attempted to target minors, which Meta reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The deleted accounts were part of a “coordinated network” of about 2,500 accounts linked to a group of about 20 people who managed them, according to Meta.
In April, Meta announced it was rolling out new tools on Instagram to protect young people and combat sexual extortion, including a feature that will automatically fade nudity in direct messages . Meta is still testing these features as part of its campaign to combat sex scams and other forms of “image abuse ,” and to make it harder for criminals to contact teens.
Davis says users should be wary of messages from people whose photos are “highly stylized ,” who are “exceptionally good-looking,” or who have never messaged you before.
“This should give you pause ,” she said. Scammers often use this tactic to try to gain the trust of unsuspecting people and trick them into sending them a photo of themselves.
“This is one of the areas where, if you have any suspicion, I would urge you to be cautious ,” she said.