According to its parent firm Meta, WhatsApp removed 6.8 million accounts associated with fraudsters 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, such 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 frauds 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 frauds 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 fraudsters had created the instructions sent to possible victims using ChatGPT. According to Meta, scammers usually text prospective victims before transferring the discussion to private messaging applications or social media. It also said that these frauds were typically carried out on bitcoin or payment sites.
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