Meta Targets Pig Butchering Scams Amid Criticism For Slow Response

Meta combats pig butchering scams by removing 2 million accounts, collaborating with law enforcement, and using AI to disrupt fraud operations.

Meta has for the first time revealed details about its efforts to address the escalating global crisis of pig butchering scams, as first reported on Thursday by WIRED.

The company shared Thursday that it has been collaborating with law enforcement and other tech companies for more than two years. Their goal is to tackle the organized crime syndicates fueling these scams, particularly in Southeast Asia and the UAE, as reported by WIRED.

The company reported that it has taken down over 2 million accounts linked to scam compounds in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, and the UAE in 2024 alone. These compounds, where victims are trafficked and forced to work as online scammers, are often connected to Chinese organized crime, according to WIRED.

WIRED said that Meta has also worked closely with NGOs, external tech companies, and coalitions dedicated to combating online fraud. However, the company emphasized that its primary focus is on working with law enforcement to directly track criminal syndicates.

“This is a highly adversarial space where we expect well-resourced and persistent criminal organizations to constantly evolve their tactics in response to detection and enforcement to try and reconstitute across the internet,” a Meta spokesperson explained, said WIRED.

Despite these efforts, WIRED noticed that Meta has faced criticism for its slow response in acknowledging the role its platforms play in facilitating scams.

Researchers have pointed out that while Meta isn’t the only platform being exploited by scammers, its services—like Facebook and Instagram—are widely trusted and thus attract fraudsters.

WIRED reports that Ronnie Tokazowski, a long-time pig butchering researcher and cofounder of Intelligence for Good, stated,

“I’m glad that Meta is finally starting to talk about this work, but in the research community, we feel like we’ve been trying to get their attention for a long time and collaborate with them and they often aren’t engaging with us.”

Pig butchering scams often begin on social media, where trafficked individuals are forced to build relationships with potential victims under the guise of romance or investment opportunities.

Victims are eventually persuaded to send large sums of money, and in total, these scams have defrauded people out of approximately $75 billion in recent years, says WIRED.

Meta notes that scams can start on dating apps, text messages, social media, or messaging apps before moving to scam-controlled cryptocurrency platforms. Despite ongoing takedowns, some scam activity remains undetected due to the challenges of moderating content that doesn’t clearly violate community standards, reports WIRED.

Cybersecurity expert Gary Warner, director of intelligence at DarkTower, commented, “So much of what is on platform is clearly the prelude to pig butchering, but Meta says it ‘doesn’t violate community standards,’” as reported by WIRED.

WIRED notes that Meta’s report also revealed that criminals are increasingly adopting advanced technologies like artificial intelligence to improve the efficiency of their scams. For instance, a recent scam operation targeting Japanese and Chinese speakers was found to be using ChatGPT to translate scam messages.

“A ‘cluster’ of accounts that all appeared to come from Cambodia were spotted translating and generating comments using ChatGPT,” said OpenAI spokesperson Liz Bourgeois. OpenAI banned the accounts and alerted Meta to the scam activity, as reported by WIRED.

As Meta continues to take action against scam activity, the challenge of countering these sophisticated operations remains an ongoing battle.