{"id":25490,"date":"2024-11-22T10:10:13","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T18:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2024\/11\/22\/news-19220\/"},"modified":"2024-11-22T10:10:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T18:10:13","slug":"news-19220","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2024\/11\/22\/news-19220\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta takes down more than 2 million accounts in fight against pig butchering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Meta provided insight<\/a> this week into the company’s efforts in taking down more than 2 million accounts that were connected to pig butchering<\/a> scams on their owned platforms, Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n

Pig butchering scams are big business, with hundreds of millions of dollars involved every year. The numbers are not precise because some researchers see these scams as a special kind of romance scam<\/a>, while others classify them as investment fraud<\/a>, muddying the numbers based on which group is counting what type of loss.<\/p>\n

Still, the general idea is that scammers use elaborate storylines to fatten up victims into believing they are in a romantic or otherwise close personal relationship. Once the victim places enough trust in the scammer, they bring the victim into a cryptocurrency investment scheme. Then comes the “butchering”\u2014an attempt to “bleed” a target dry of their money.<\/p>\n

Pig butchering, however, isn’t always a simple case of cybercriminals preying on unsuspecting victims. As Meta described, sometimes the scammers themselves are victims that work in scam centers, mainly located in Asia.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThese criminal scam hubs lure often unsuspecting job seekers with too-good-to-be-true job postings on local job boards, forums, and recruitment platforms to then force them to work as online scammers, often under the threat of physical abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

These workers not only work on pig butchering scams. They are also forced to engage in a wide range of malicious activities that can involve cryptocurrency and gambling, or they can be tasked to carry out impersonation scams.<\/p>\n

Working with expert NGOs and law enforcement partners in the US and Southeast Asia, Meta has focused on investigating and disrupting the activities of the criminal scam centers in Southeast Asia. This has led to the take-down of over two million accounts linked to scam centers in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Despite their location, the targets of the scams can be found all over the globe. The scammers follow playbooks to gain the trust of the targets. Contacting victims initially on social media, dating apps, email, or messaging apps, the scammers later move their interactions to more private channels like scammer-controlled accounts on crypto apps or scam websites masquerading as investment platforms. This pushes victims further into a trap and it removes their ability to report their conversations to a platform that takes this type of abuse seriously. <\/p>\n

From here, scammers will continue the charade that they’ve set up wise investments for the targets. But once enough trust has been built to seriously rob a victim, scammers will steal what they can and disappear. As Meta said:<\/p>\n

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\u201cTypical of \u2018pig butchering\u2019 schemes, the target may be allowed to withdraw small amounts to build trust, but once they start asking for their \u2018investment\u2019 back or it becomes clear that they do not have more funds to send to the scammer, overseas scammers typically disappear with all the money.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How to avoid becoming the pig<\/h2>\n

The good thing about pig butchery scams is that they mostly follow a narrow pattern, with few variations. If you recognize the signs, you stand a very good chance of going about your day with a distinct lack of pig-related issues. The signs are:<\/p>\n