NEW YORK (AP) – WhatsApp has removed 6.8 million accounts “linked to crime fraud centers” that targeted people online in its world, parent company Meta said this week.
The account deletion, which Meta said, took place in the first six months of the year, arrived as part of a broader company effort to crack down on fraud. In Tuesday’s announcement, Meta will include rolling out new tools in WhatsApp to add continuous test alerts to the group before responding, including a new safety summary that the platform will display when people who are not in user contacts add to the group.
Scams are all too common and refined in today’s digital world. This would be too good. They try to fill in unsolicited messages trying to steal consumer information, as well as internet mobile phones, social media and other corners every day. Meta is that some of the “most prolific” sources of fraud are crime fraud centers, often spanning forced labor run by organized crime. Such efforts have warned that they often target people from many platforms at once, often in attempts to avoid detection.
This means fraud campaigns can start with messages via texts or dating apps, for example, and move to social media and payment platforms, the California-based company said.
Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, pointed to recent scam efforts, saying it uses its own apps (Tiktok, Telegram and Ai-generated messages) to provide fake payments, join the pyramid scheme and threaten to seduce others. Meta said they linked these scams to Cambodia’s Crime Fraud Centre and worked with ChatGpt maker Openai to disrupt the campaign.
Original issue: August 6, 2025, 5:24pm EDT
