Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, announced on Wednesday the removal of 63,000 accounts associated with the Nigerian cybercrime (Yahoo Yahoo) scene.

These accounts were involved in financial sextortion scams targeting users in the United States.

In its Q1 2024 Adversarial Threat Report, Meta revealed that the purged accounts included approximately 2,500 belonging to a smaller coordinated network linked to around 20 individuals.

According to Meta, these individuals primarily targeted adult men in the U.S. and operated under false identities using fake accounts.

Meta further explained that it utilized advanced technical signals and conducted thorough investigations to identify and disable these accounts, thereby strengthening its automated detection systems.

“Financial sextortion is a borderless crime, fueled in recent years by the increased activity of Yahoo Boys, loosely organised cybercriminals operating largely out of Nigeria that specialize in different types of scams,” Meta said.

It added, “We’ve removed around 63,000 accounts in Nigeria attempting to target people with financial sextortion scams, including a coordinated network of around 2,500 accounts.”

“We’ve also removed a set of Facebook accounts, pages, and groups run by Yahoo Boys—banned under our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy—that were attempting to organize, recruit and train new scammers.”

Meta’s global head of safety, Antigone Davis, further explained that while most of the attempts targeted adults and were unsuccessful, there were also reports involving minors, which were referred to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

“While our investigation showed that the majority of these scammers’ attempts were unsuccessful and mostly targeted adults, we did see some attempts to target minors,” David said.

Furthermore, Meta announced the removal of approximately 7,200 assets in Nigeria, which included 1,300 Facebook accounts, 200 pages, and 5,700 groups involved in disseminating scam-related resources.

It was elaborated that these assets were found offering scripts and guides for scams, as well as sharing links to collections of photos used to create fake accounts.