Eliminatation of more than 400,000 accounts involved in romantic scams

Social networks also allow you to find love, but until this appears, cybercriminals take advantage of the situation of people to deceive them with scams that simulating being military or celebrities, and who have led to the elimination of more than 400,000 accounts in 2024 by goal.

Las romantic scams are not exclusive to the days prior to Valentine’s Day (February 14), but are on the stalking all year to go to their victims with romantic arguments that have as a goal empty their bank accounts.

The most popular are those in which cybercriminals They get through a foreign military or a famous. They contact first through social networks and if someone answers them, they follow the conversation in a messaging service such as WhatsApp or Telegram. In the end, they ask for money through gift cards or payment applications, or urge to participate in a fraudulent investment.

In this context, Target has eliminated 408,000 accounts from Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benín and Cameroon. As explained in their official blog, Western military personnel or businessmen had been passed to deceive people in Australia, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States, South Korea, Syria, Japan and Ukraine.

Ha also Recently eliminated more than 116,000 pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram, Mainly in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benín, Kenya and Cameroon, involved in similar activities.

To combat these scam They supplant the identity of other accounts and that are detected by the automated systems of their applications.

They also apply Restrictions to accounts that consider that they are suspicious and show warnings to users to pause and act with caution in these cases.

The actions also reach messaging services. Thus, in Messenger, the ‘Security Notices’ They warn users that they are chatting with someone who shows signs of suspicious activity and that can be located in another country.

Meta has assured that it is currently testing similar notices for adolescents in the Instagram social network, which aims to expand more users in the coming months.

In WhatsApp, in addition, users can silence calls from unknown numbers To avoid unwanted contacts.