Meta Fights Online Scam: Over 6.8 Million Fraudulent WhatsApp Accounts Deleted
On Tuesday, tech giant Meta announced that it deleted over 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts related to fraudulent activities in the first half of 2025.
According to Meta, most of the blocked accounts were related to fraudulent activities in Southeast Asia, and they were deleted before they were fully utilized by scammers.
It is said that fraudsters tend to run multiple scams simultaneously, including cryptocurrency investment scams and pyramid schemes. These scams are likely to move from text messages and dating apps to social media and messaging apps, ultimately to payment or cryptocurrency platforms, Meta said, adding that scammers intentionally cycle their victims between multiple platforms, making it difficult for the platforms' operators to catch fraudulent signals and to identify scam victims with the limited information.
Meta also partnered with artificial intelligence firm OpenAI to curb fraudulent activity related to a fraud center in Cambodia. The scammers were trying to “buy likes” to lead people into a pyramid scheme or trick them into investing in cryptocurrencies.
According to OpenAI, the scammers used ChatGPT to generate text with a link to a WhatsApp group, and then quickly directed victims to Telegram, where they were given the task of liking a short video. To gain the victim's trust, the scammers told them how much money they can theoretically “earn” by completing the task, and then asked the victim to deposit money in a cryptocurrency account for the next task.
Additionally, WhatsApp introduced new tools on group messaging and individual messaging. For example, unless a user decides and marks themselves to stay in a group, any notifications from that group will be muted.
BrokersView reminds you
Unfamiliar groups on WhatsApp and Telegram are often the start of investment scams. Scammers silently invite victims to groups and then lead them to fake online trading platforms.
Check the regulatory status of the relevant trading platforms via BrokersView before investing to avoid being scammed.
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