According to its parent firm Meta, WhatsApp removed 6.8 million accounts associated with scammers who prey on victims worldwide in the first half of this year.
The social media behemoth claimed that many were connected to fraud centers operated by South East Asian organized crime groups, who frequently employed forced labor in their activities.
As WhatsApp introduced new anti-scam features to warn users of possible fraudulent activities, like a user being invited to a group chat by someone who isn’t on their contacts list, Meta made the announcement.
The crackdown targets an increasingly prevalent strategy used by crooks to promote phony investment schemes and other scams by hijacking WhatsApp accounts or adding individuals to group discussions.
Meta stated that WhatsApp “proactively detected and took down accounts before scam centres were able to operationalise them.”
In one instance, WhatsApp collaborated with Meta and ChatGPT developer OpenAI to thwart scams associated with a criminal organization from Cambodia that promoted a phony rent-a-scooter pyramid scheme by offering money in exchange for likes on social media posts.
It claimed that scammers had created the instructions sent to possible victims using ChatGPT.
According to Meta, scammers usually text prospective victims before transferring the conversation to private messaging apps or social media.
These scams were usually completed on payment or cryptocurrency platforms, it added.
“There is always a catch and it should be a red flag for everyone: you have to pay upfront to get promised returns or earnings.”
It is well known that scam centers operating out of South East Asian nations like Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar defraud individuals out of billions of dollars.
Additionally, it is well known that these centers recruit individuals who are subsequently coerced into committing the scams.
To help prevent their accounts from being compromised, authorities in the area have advised citizens to be cautious of possible fraud and to use anti-scam tools like WhatsApp’s two-step verification feature.
For instance, police in Singapore have advised users to be cautious about any odd requests they get on messaging apps.
