DOJ Details Meta’s Removal of 3.7 Million Scam Accounts, Pages and Groups in Fraud Crackdown

The U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday that an international operation targeting online fraud networks in West Africa produced 28 arrests, the rescue of 117 trafficking victims and the removal of more than 3.7 million scam-linked Facebook and Instagram accounts, pages and groups. The week of coordinated action brought American and British investigators together with African police and major technology companies to identify both the people running scams and the online infrastructure they used.

Meta, rather than the Justice Department, carried out the 3.7 million social-media removals. The figure does not refer to bank accounts or to 3.7 million individuals arrested or identified as fraud victims. Authorities also reported that private-sector partners had located more than $11 million in potentially freezable funds, a preliminary finding that is different from money already frozen, seized or returned to victims.

Joint Disruption Week began October 6, bringing investigators together in London while police pursued suspected scam centers in Ghana and Nigeria. In its official account of Joint Disruption Week, the Justice Department described a coordinated attempt to reach scam networks through criminal investigations, electronic evidence and voluntary action taken by technology platforms. Enforcement work was concentrated in Ghana and Nigeria, with other international partners sharing intelligence.

These scams can move across several services before a victim ever sends money. A fraudulent investment approach might begin with an impersonating social-media profile, move into a private conversation and eventually involve cryptocurrency transfers. Police can pursue the operators, but technology firms are often positioned to remove the accounts used to find new targets and to identify related activity across their services.

Meta removes scam accounts as investigators exchange leads

Meta said it removed more than 3.7 million Facebook and Instagram accounts, pages and groups based in West Africa during the operation. A majority appeared to target people in the United States and United Kingdom, often through profiles impersonating Americans or Britons, according to the company’s October 13 announcement. Microsoft separately suspended accounts suspected of links to the activity, although no comparable Microsoft removal total was supplied.

Platform removals accompanied a wider intelligence effort. Industry partners passed along information concerning more than 30 suspected scam centers. That number describes leads shared with law enforcement, not a confirmed count of facilities raided or permanently shut down. Investigators used information gathered from online accounts, possible recruitment networks and financial activity to identify targets for further action.

Alongside Meta, 14 other technology companies worked with law-enforcement counterparts from 10 countries, according to Meta. The UK’s National Crime Agency hosted the in-person gathering in London, with participation from the Justice Department, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and authorities from Ghana and Nigeria. Representatives from countries including Australia, Canada, India and New Zealand also took part.

Several firms brought different kinds of information to the effort. Online platforms could find impersonation accounts and connected pages, while cryptocurrency and financial-intelligence companies could examine suspicious movements of funds. That division of responsibilities explains why a large account-removal figure and a much smaller arrest count appear in the same announcement: they represent different measures of disruption, not competing estimates of a single outcome.

The Justice Department called this the first coordinated disruption campaign focused specifically on West African scam networks. Organizers described it as the fourth international initiative of its kind, but the first hosted by the National Crime Agency and the first focused on the region. U.S. prosecutors described the work as part of their efforts to combat cyber-enabled scams and pursue criminal groups operating across borders.

Ghana and Nigeria raids uncover trafficking victims

In Ghana, authorities arrested 19 people in Sasaabi, near Accra, and seized 303 electronic devices during the enforcement period. They also identified 117 people who had been trafficked into scam operations, according to the Justice Department. Officials said those victims were awaiting repatriation to Nigeria, underscoring that some people found inside scam centers were being held or coerced rather than freely participating in the fraud.

Meta described the rescued people as having been confined in a residential compound and subjected to physical and psychological abuse. It said they had been forced to carry out scam-related work. Those allegations and the reported conditions came from the authorities and company involved in the operation; individual criminal cases will still have to establish the responsibility of any defendants.

Ghanaian investigators separately identified 89 people victimized by fraud, with losses estimated at about $8.3 million. That is a measure of losses associated with identified scam victims, not an amount recovered by police and not a valuation of all the networks targeted during the international operation. The distinct counts also should not be added together as though they describe the same type of victim.

In Nigeria, law enforcement arrested nine people and seized 53 electronic devices. The National Crime Agency said the arrests occurred in Delta State and that the seized equipment included laptops, phones and routers. Taken together, the Ghana and Nigeria arrest figures account for the 28 arrests reported across the campaign; authorities did not say every suspect had been convicted or that all identified criminal groups had been dismantled.

Police in Ghana had also raided suspected scam sites during late September. The Justice Department separately reported the identification of 34 trafficking victims and the seizure of 129 devices in those earlier raids. Keeping those results apart from the October tally is important because the central 117-victim rescue figure refers to the more recent operation.

Potentially frozen funds and the wider investment-fraud toll

Financial leads did not necessarily amount to recovered money. Private companies identified more than $11 million that might be eligible to be frozen, the Justice Department said. It did not establish that the whole amount had already been secured by authorities or returned to people who lost money. The announcement mentioned cryptocurrency seizures but did not give a comprehensive dollar total for funds confiscated during the week.

Meta also said Coinbase identified more than 65 people actively being targeted by scams and prevented over $415,000 in potential losses. Those are company-reported preventive results, not reimbursements for past losses. They illustrate another role for private-sector participants: recognizing a suspicious transfer while a fraud is still in progress can sometimes stop a payment before the victim’s money leaves their control.

Investigators described several methods that the suspected networks used to reach people abroad. Authorities highlighted bogus cryptocurrency investments, impersonation of police or other officials, romance scams and job offers that required victims to pay fees. Fraudulent investment pitches can be particularly difficult to spot when criminals first spend time building a relationship, then direct their target to a platform displaying fictitious trading profits.

Separate FBI figures show how costly this type of crime has become. The bureau’s 2025 Internet Crime Report recorded more than $7.2 billion in reported cryptocurrency investment-fraud losses in the United States, according to the Justice Department’s summary of the data. That national figure covers a wider set of complaints; it should not be read as money lost specifically to the West African operations targeted in October. Because the FBI statistics depend on reports made to authorities, they also do not measure every fraudulent payment.

Removing a network’s accounts can interrupt its ability to contact new targets, but digital removals alone do not establish what happens to the people organizing the schemes or to victims who already sent money. The arrests and evidence seizures therefore form an important second part of the enforcement response. Prosecutors and police still have to examine evidence, pursue individual cases and determine which assets can lawfully be restrained or recovered.

Neither the Justice Department nor Meta announced a final loss estimate for all victims of the targeted networks, a total amount of restitution paid, or a date by which the investigations will conclude. For now, the confirmed results are the social-media removals, the arrests and trafficking rescues, the devices seized, and financial leads that authorities and private companies say could support further cases.