Meta closed more than 150,000 accounts across its social networks as part of an operation against online fraud centres in Southeast Asia conducted by authorities from several countries, according to a post published today on its website.
The operation also led to the arrest of 21 people by Thai police, with the collaboration of the US Department of Justice, the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA).
It follows a first coordinated action in December that led to arrests and the closure of 59,000 accounts by Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp — which also blocked several thousand advertisements linked to cyberfraud.
The crackdown has accelerated in recent months against online scam centres, many of which are established in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos. According to the US government, American citizens who fell victim to online or telephone scams originating from Southeast Asia lost more than $10 billion in 2024.
“Tackling this problem requires collaboration between the public and private sectors,” said Jirabhop Bhuridej, deputy chief of the Thai Royal Police (RTP), in a statement.
An AFP investigation published in October revealed that, despite a crackdown earlier in the year, similar compounds were proliferating in Myanmar near the Thai border. These are typically call centres or contact centres where workers are forced to contact individuals and extort money through various techniques.
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Facebook is currently testing an alert system for when an account showing “signs of suspicious activity” attempts to contact another user. WhatsApp has already implemented a similar mechanism, and Meta is rolling it out for Messenger.
