Facebook publicly acknowledged on Thursday that it’s engaged in a massive struggle with online crime gangs who abuse the service and steal from consumers worldwide. In a blog post, the firm said it had removed two million accounts just this year that had been linked to crime gangs, and was fighting on fronts across the world, including places like Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines. But in a nod to how difficult the fight is, the firm acknowledged it needs help.
“We know that these are extremely persistent and well-resourced criminal organizations working to evolve their tactics and evade detection, including by law enforcement,” the firm wrote. “We’ve seen them operate across borders with little deterrence and across many internet platforms in an attempt to ensure that any one company or country has only a narrow view into the full picture of scam operations. This makes collaboration within industries and countries even more critical.”
I’ve been writing about the size and scope of scam operations for years, but lately, I’ve tried to ring the alarm bell about just how massive these crime gangs have become (See, “They’re finding dead bodies outside call centers). If you haven’t heard about a tragic victim in your circle of friends recently, I’m afraid you will soon. There will be millions of victims and perhaps $1 trillion in losses by the time we count them all..and behind each one, you’ll find a shattered life.
Facebook’s post focused on a crime that is commonly called “pig butchering” — a term I shun and will not use again because it is so demeaning to victims. Often, the crime involves the long-term seduction of a victim, followed by an eventual invitation to invest in a made-up asset like cryptocurrency. The scams are so elaborate that they include real-sounding firms, with real-looking account statements. They can stretch well into a year or two. Behind the scenes, an army of criminals works together to keep up the relationship and to manufacture these realistic elements. As I’ve described elsewhere, hundreds of thousands of these criminals are themselves victims, conscripted into scam compounds via some form of human trafficking.
Many victims don’t find out what’s going on until they’ve sent much of their retirement savings to the crime gang.
“Today, for the first time, we are sharing our approach to countering the cross-border criminal organizations behind forced-labor scam compounds under our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals (DOI) and safety policies,” Facebook said. “We hope that sharing our insights will help inform our industry’s defenses so we can collectively help protect people from criminal scammers.”
It’s a great development that Facebook is sharing its behind-the-scenes work to combat this crime. But the firm can and must do more. Its private message service is often a critical tool for criminals to ensure victims; its platform full of “friendly” strangers in affinity groups is essential for victim grooming. It would be unfair to say Facebook is to blame for these crimes; but I also know no one works there who wants to go home at night thinking the tool they’ve built is being used to ruin thousands of lives.
How could Facebook do more? One version of the scam begins with the hijacking of a legitimate account that already enjoys trust relationships. In one typical fact pattern, a good-looking soldier’s account is stolen, and then used to flirt with users. The pictures and service records are often a powerful asset for criminals trying to seduce victims.
Victims who’ve had their accounts hijacked say it can take months to recover their accounts, or to even get the service to take down their profiles being used for scams. As I’ve written before, when a victim tells Facebook that an account is actively being used to steal from its members, it’s hard to understand why the firm would be slow to investigate. Poor customer service is our most serious cyber vulnerability.
In another blog post from last month, Facebook said it has begun testing better ways to restore hijacked accounts. That’s good, too. But I’m here to tell you the new method the firm says it’s using — uploaded video selfies — has been in use for at least two years. You might remember my experience using it. So, what’s the holdup? If we are in the middle of an international conflict with crime gangs stealing hundreds of millions of dollars, you’d think such a tool would be farther along by now.
Still, I take the publication of today’s post — in which Facebook acknowledges the problem — as a very positive first step. I’d hope other tech companies will follow suit, and will also cooperate with the firm’s ideas around information sharing. Meta, Facebook’s parent, is uniquely positioned to stop online crime gangs; its ample resources should be a match even for these massive crime gangs.
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