Meta announced on Wednesday that it has disabled more than 150,000 accounts associated with fraud centers in Southeast Asia as part of a coordinated effort with authorities in Thailand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia.
The company said the initiative also led to the arrest of 21 people by the Royal Thai Police. The action builds on a pilot effort in December 2025 in which Meta removed 59,000 accounts, pages, and groups from the platform and issued six arrest warrants.
“Online fraud has become significantly more sophisticated and industrialized in recent years, with criminal networks often based in Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos conducting full-scale operations,” Mehta said in a statement. “These operations cause real harm. They are life-altering, trust-destroying, and intentionally designed to avoid detection and disruption.”
In parallel, Meta said it would be announcing a number of new tools to protect people when fraud-related red flags are detected.
Facebook will show a new warning if users receive a suspicious account. Alert users when they receive a suspicious WhatsApp device link request by having them scan a QR code that links the scammer’s device to their account. We’re expanding advanced fraud detection in Messenger to prompt users to share recent chat messages for AI fraud review when conversations with new contacts show common fraud patterns, such as suspicious job offers.
The social media giant announced it has removed more than 159 million fraudulent ads for violating its policies in 2025, and removed 10.9 million Facebook and Instagram accounts associated with crime fraud centers. Additionally, the company announced plans to expand advertiser verification to increase transparency and curb malicious activity that misrepresents advertiser identity.
The development comes as the UK government launches a new online crime center, bringing together experts from government, police, intelligence agencies, banks, mobile networks and major technology companies to combat cybercrime, including cybercrime fueled by the rise of fraud conglomerates operating in South East Asia, West Africa, Eastern Europe, India and China.
The destruction squad is scheduled to begin operations next month. It also outlines plans to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) to warn of new fraud patterns, stop suspicious bank transfers more quickly, and use “fraud chatbots” to trick fraudsters into collecting information.
“Backed by more than £30 million in funding, the center will identify accounts, websites and phone numbers relied on by organized crime groups and carry out large-scale closures, including blocking fraudulent emails, freezing criminal accounts, deleting fraudulent social media accounts and disrupting the activities of intelligence sources,” the UK government said.
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