Meta removed more than 3.7 million accounts tied to romance and investment scam networks

Meta took down more than 3.7 million accounts, Pages and Groups on Facebook and Instagram during a week-long operation against West African scam networks that centered on romance and investment fraud. Police in Ghana and Nigeria arrested 28 people, and Ghanaian officers identified 117 people who had been trafficked and held at a scam compound.

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The effort began on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, was announced a week later, and brought together Meta, 14 other technology companies and law enforcement from ten countries. Most of the removed profiles appeared to target people in the United States and the United Kingdom by posing as American and British users, which is the disguise that makes a stranger’s friendly message feel local and familiar to the person receiving it.

The 3.7 million accounts and who else acted

In its announcement of the operation, Meta said it removed more than 3.7 million accounts, Pages and Groups across Facebook and Instagram. The wording matters, because the figure counts three kinds of assets rather than only personal profiles. Microsoft suspended accounts suspected of ties to the same activity, and the company named partners including Coinbase, Google, OpenAI, Starlink and Adobe, along with the analytics firms Chainalysis, Silent Push and TRM Labs. More than 30 leads on scam centers were shared with investigators during the week.

Meta described the work as the largest of its kind so far and the first joint disruption aimed at West African scam centers. It also drew a contrast with the industrial compounds of Southeast Asia: the West African operations are more decentralized and less concentrated in large buildings, which makes them harder to find and shut down in a single raid. Meta tied the week to its earlier crackdowns, including a June 2026 operation with law enforcement in Southeast Asia and a companion post on disrupting those criminal networks.

Arrests, trafficking victims and seized devices

The operation was hosted by the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency at its London headquarters, with the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and other American agencies taking part. The Record, citing the reporting around the announcement, put the arrests at 19 in Ghana and 9 in Nigeria, and described a raid in Sasaabi, a semi-rural community outside Accra, where 303 devices were seized. Ghanaian police identified 117 people as trafficking victims, who were awaiting repatriation to Nigeria.

The same coverage reported that 89 scam victims had lost an estimated $8.3 million. FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau identified at least $11 million in potentially freezable funds and seized hundreds of devices, though officials did not say how much money was ultimately frozen or seized. Coinbase said it identified more than 65 active scam victims and stopped more than $415,000 in potential losses, while Silent Push mapped more than 35,000 malicious domains and nearly 700 communication channels.

Scam types and what the officials said

The targeted schemes were not limited to romance and investment fraud. Meta listed job and task scams, law enforcement and military impersonation, non-delivery scams and scam recovery fraud, in which criminals promise to retrieve money already lost for a fee. Investment scams often begin with the affectionate stranger who gradually steers the conversation toward cryptocurrency or a trading platform, so the categories overlap in practice.

Chris Sonderby, Meta’s vice president and deputy general counsel, said, “Scams are a global threat that demand a global response.” Steven Masada of the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit said, “No single organization sees the full picture, which is why this kind of collaboration matters.” Nick Sharp, deputy director of fraud at the National Crime Agency, said fraudsters can operate from anywhere and will target victims at home and abroad, and the agency has not yet established how many British or American victims were affected.

Lord Hanson, the United Kingdom’s fraud minister, said criminal gangs operating overseas are behind most of the scams aimed at the British public. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and founder of the Scam Center Strike Force, said criminals are not hindered by borders and neither is her team. Michael Sweeney of Silent Push said scam centers depend on infrastructure to stay hidden and that exposing it is how they are put out of business, which explains why the domain mapping and the tracing of payments sat alongside the account removals. Leah Bressack, a Coinbase vice president, said the company’s Global Intelligence team is following the money and freezing assets. Meta pointed readers to its Community Standards for the rules these networks violate, but the week’s design suggests removing a profile ends only one conversation, while disabling the hosting, payment routes and communication channels behind it is what raises the cost of starting over.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.