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Social media company, Meta has announced that it has removed around 63,000 Instagram accounts of Yahoo Boys, a loosely organized cybercriminals operating largely out of Nigeria&nbsp;that specialize in different types of scams. These accounts mostly attempted to engage in financial sextortion scams. 
Financial sextortion is a horrific crime that can have devastating consequences. It is a scheme that involves taking funds from people using the threat to release their compromising photos if they do not pay. 
According to <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2024/07/combating-financial-sextortion-scams-from-nigeria/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">an announcement made today</a>, the company said it had used a combination of new technical signals developed to help identify sex extortion. 
Like many crimes, financial sextortion crosses borders, and over recent years there’s been a growing trend of scammers — largely driven by cybercriminals known as Yahoo Boys — targeting people across the internet, both with these and other types of scams.&nbsp; 
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“Applying lessons learned from taking down terrorist groups and coordinated inauthentic behaviour, we used our identification of this coordinated network to help us identify more accounts in Nigeria that were attempting to engage in similar sextortion scams, bringing the total to around 63,000 accounts removed.”, the announcement said. 
Read also: <a href="https://technext24.com/2021/10/14/tech-not-yahoo-nigerian-techies-talk-about-choices-and-the-uneasy-relationship-between-them/">Tech not Yahoo: Nigerian techies talk about the uneasy relationship between internet fraud and tech</a> 
To prevent a re-emergence, Meta noted that its systems have been identifying and automatically blocking attempts from these groups to come back and that its team will continue to strengthen those systems to make them as effective as possible. “We’ve also used the new tactics we observed to further improve our ability to detect accounts, Groups and Pages engaging in this activity”, it added. 
The company also said that it has banned “Yahoo Boys” under Meta’s&nbsp;<a href="https://transparency.meta.com/en-gb/policies/community-standards/dangerous-individuals-organizations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy</a>&nbsp;— one of its strictest policies. This implies that the company will remove accounts engaged in criminal activities whenever we become aware of them as well as any account associated with Yahoo Boys.&nbsp; 
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 Meta also indicated that it has removed around 7,200 assets, including 1,300 Facebook accounts, 200 Facebook Pages and 5,700 Facebook Groups, also based in Nigeria, that were providing tips for conducting scams.
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The company’s investigation showed that the majority of the scammers’ attempts were unsuccessful and although mostly targeting adults, there were also attempts against minors, which Meta reported to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the U.S. 
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Since these criminals don’t limit themselves to any one platform, Meta claimed that it has shared relevant information with other tech companies through the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.technologycoalition.org/newsroom/announcing-lantern" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tech Coalition’s Lantern program</a>, so they can take action too. 
<h4 id="this-follows-a-200m-fine-on-meta-by-nigerias-fccpc" class="wp-block-heading">This follows a $200m fine on Meta by Nigeria’s FCCPC</h4> 
This follows an announcement by the&nbsp;Federal Competition and Consumer Protection<a href="https://technext24.com/2023/12/27/loan-apps-harassment-drops-by-80-fccpc/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> Commission</a>&nbsp;(FCCPC) that it is <a href="https://technext24.com/2024/07/19/fccpc-fines-meta-220m-for-data-violation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fining Meta</a> a sum of $220 million ($220,000,000.00) for violations and other exploitative practices. The amount is to be paid into the Treasury Single Account (TSA) of the Federal Government of Nigeria. 
According to the FCCPC, this follows an investigation that the commission had carried out in collaboration with the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) into Meta Platforms, Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.), and its subsidiary WhatsApp LLC. 
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The 38-month-long investigation centred on alleged violations of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act (FCCPA) 2018, Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) 2019, and other relevant laws. It uncovered several significant violations by the tech giant. 
According to the statement, the tech company engaged with the FCCPC and NDPC, providing information and evidence. However, the final order emphasised the severity of the violations and the need for Meta to align its practices with Nigerian laws to protect consumer rights effectively. 
Following the investigation, the FCCPC issued a series of orders and penalties against Meta which include an order to cease its exploitative practices and comply with Nigerian laws on data privacy and consumer protection.

Meta removed 63,000 Instagram accounts affiliated with Yahoo Boys for sextortion

Technext.ng

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