Meta says it culled millions of scam ads amid accusations that it profits from them

Meta said it removed 159 million scam ads in 2025, amid calls from U.S. lawmakers for an investigation into the company’s “facilitation of and profiting from” fraudulent advertising.

The company said it also removed 10.9 million Facebook and Instagram accounts associated with criminal scam centers as it rolled out new tools aimed at stopping online fraud, something Meta describes as “one of the fastest-growing forms of organized crime globally.”

Americans lost more than $10 billion to scams in 2023, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), with hundreds of billions stolen globally through schemes that often begin on social media.

The incentives for these platforms to tackle the problem have been questioned. A Reuters investigation last year, citing internal company documents, reported that Meta projected about 10% of its 2024 revenue, roughly $16 billion, would come from ads linked to scams and banned goods. Meta disputes that figure and says scams undermine the trust its advertising business depends on.

Many of the scam operations are based in large compounds in Southeast Asia, where workers are often trafficked or coerced into running fraud schemes targeting victims around the world. Survivors rescued from these facilities say they were lured with promises of legitimate jobs before being effectively imprisoned and forced to carry out scams.

They typically involve so-called “pig-butchering,” in which criminals build relationships with victims over weeks or months before persuading them to invest in fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes. Victims are often persuaded to invest increasing sums over time, sometimes losing life savings before realizing the schemes are fraudulent.

U.S., Chinese and other regional law enforcement agencies have targeted some of the bad actors across Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and other countries for their role in the scam center economy. Last November, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the establishment of a strike force to target the compounds.

Meta said it has increasingly targeted entire scam networks rather than individual accounts, working with law enforcement to disrupt operations across multiple platforms.

In a post Wednesday, the company announced working with the Royal Thai Police, the FBI and Britain’s National Crime Agency during a Bangkok operation targeting scam centers. Meta said it disabled more than 150,000 accounts tied to scam networks during the effort, and that information shared during the operation contributed to 21 arrests by Thai police.

The networks behind such centers “are running what amount to full-scale criminal business operations,” David Agranovich, Meta’s director of global threat disruption, told reporters in a briefing. “They recruit workers, train them in social-engineering techniques and run coordinated multi-platform fraud campaigns that target people around the world.”

Alongside its work with law enforcement, Meta said it is introducing new tools for its platforms designed to detect scams earlier, including warnings about suspicious Facebook friend requests, alerts when scammers try to link victims’ WhatsApp accounts to their own devices and expanded AI systems to detect scam messages on Messenger.

The company said most scam ads are detected automatically. Agranovich said 92% of the 159 million scam ads removed last year were taken down before anyone reported them.

Questions about incentives

During the briefing, Agranovich was asked whether Meta tracks how much advertising revenue comes from ads later identified as scams. He did not provide a figure but challenged the Reuters report, saying “the 10% figure was misleading” and calling it “an overly inclusive estimate that contained ads that didn’t actually violate our scam policies.”

He said scams ultimately hurt the company. “Scams are bad for business,” Agranovich said. “They don’t just harm individual victims. They undermine trust both in our business and in the advertising ecosystem that is the foundation of our business model.”

The Reuters investigation helped spur calls in Washington for greater scrutiny of scam ads on Meta platforms. In November, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) urged the FTC and Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Meta profited from scam advertising and whether enforcement action was warranted.

Other lawmakers have pushed for broader changes. In February, Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) introduced the bipartisan SCAM Act, which would require social media companies to take “reasonable steps” to verify advertisers and combat fraudulent ads or face action from the FTC and state attorneys general.

That debate is widening beyond Congress. Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order focused on cybercrime, fraud and scam centers, emphasizing law enforcement coordination, diplomacy and victim restitution rather than imposing direct new obligations on tech platforms.

In Britain, the government this week outlined a new fraud strategy that would shift more responsibility for stopping scams onto telecom providers, technology companies and financial firms. Critics say it falls short of actually introducing any substantial obligations on those private sector entities who could best disrupt the crimes.

Meta said it wants verified advertisers to account for 90% of its ad revenue by the end of 2026, up from 70% today. Asked why the goal is not 100%, the company said advertiser verification works best as part of a “multi-layered, risk-based approach” rather than a universal requirement.

The company said scams often span multiple services, including messaging apps, payment providers and cryptocurrency platforms. “We know scammers are going to keep evolving their tactics, but so will we,” Agranovich said.