Meta, the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) and leading technology companies, including Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Coinbase, Adobe and Starlink, have announced the results of a major joint operation with law enforcement agencies from 10 countries to disrupt criminal scam networks operating in West Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana.
The operation was hosted by the NCA in London in partnership with the US Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several US federal agencies. It was described as the largest operation of its kind to date and the first to broadly target criminal scam networks across the West African region.
As part of the operation, Meta removed more than 3.7 million accounts, Pages and Groups from Facebook and Instagram that were based in West Africa. Most appeared to target people in the United States and the United Kingdom through profiles impersonating American and British users.
The networks also targeted victims worldwide, including in Poland, Germany, Brazil, Japan, India, South Korea, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Turkey and Nigeria, among other countries.
Law enforcement agencies confirmed the arrest of 28 individuals and the rescue of 117 trafficking victims who had been held in a residential compound in Ghana and forced to work for scam operations.
Authorities also received leads on more than 30 scam centres to support further investigations and enforcement actions.
Technology industry partners contributed to the operation through additional measures. Coinbase proactively identified more than 65 active scam victims and prevented potential losses exceeding $415,000 before they occurred.
Microsoft suspended accounts suspected of being linked to the scam activities, while Silent Push mapped more than 35,000 malicious domains and nearly 700 communication channels associated with the scam centres.
These findings helped investigators trace the criminal networks to their physical locations and identify the operators behind them.
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