Global crackdown targets Southeast Asia’s criminal scam networks

Meta disabled more than 150,000 accounts and Thai police arrested 21 people in a sweeping international crackdown on Southeast Asian criminal scam centers that targeted people around the world, the social media giant said Wednesday.

The operation was led by Thailand’s Royal Thai Police Anti-Cyber Scam Center alongside the FBI and the US Justice Department’s Scam Center Strike Force, with Meta investigators acting on intelligence shared in real time by law enforcement.

Online scam networks, many operating out of compounds in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, have grown increasingly sophisticated in recent years, running what authorities describe as full-scale criminal business operations designed to evade detection.

Scammers working at these fraud compounds lure internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments, and have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal billions of dollars from victims around the world.

The latest crackdown also involved the UK’s National Crime Agency, as well as agencies from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.

A pilot action in December yielded the removal of 59,000 accounts, pages and groups from Meta’s platforms and six arrest warrants. Last week’s follow-up operation more than doubled that account tally.

“This operation is a testament to how sharing information and coordinating our efforts can make real progress in disrupting this criminal activity at its source,” said Chris Sonderby, Meta’s vice president and deputy general counsel.

Thai police official Jirabhop Bhuridej, assistant commissioner general of the Royal Thai Police, said the crackdown “sends a clear message to criminals” that authorities would continue to pursue online scam syndicates operating across borders.

Alongside the enforcement action, Meta announced a series of new protective tools, including alerts on Facebook for suspicious friend requests and a WhatsApp warning system to flag potentially fraudulent device-linking attempts.