Meta takes down thousands of Instagram and Facebook accounts linked to sextortion

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The Instagram logo is seen on a cellphone. / AP

LAGOS, Nigeria — Meta has removed about 63,000 Instagram accounts registered in Nigeria connected to sextortion scams, the social media company said Wednesday.

They included one network of 2,500 accounts that were linked to a group of about 20 people. Meta said it also removed more than 7,000 Facebook accounts, pages and groups also in Nigeria that were providing tips for conducting scams.

Sextortion is a scam in which a cybercriminal obtains and then threatens to release nude or sexually compromising photos, blackmailing victims for a ransom.

The rise of sextortion scams has increased pressure on social media companies like Meta to clamp down on cybercrimes committed on their platforms, especially targeting children.

Some of the accounts taken down by Meta were also working to recruit and train others to join the scams and offered manuals on how to commit them. Meta said the majority of attempts on its platforms were unsuccessful and that they mostly targeted adults.

The FBI says a rapidly growing number of children in the United States have become targets, especially teenage boys — with sometimes tragic consequences.

Seventeen-year-old Jordan DeMay was one such victim of sextortion. A popular high-school senior from Michigan, his mother Jennifer Buta told NPR her son loved to play sports, music. "He was easy going, fun-loving, hardworking," she said.

But in 2022, he died by suicide after he was targeted by scammers based in Nigeria.

Over a period of six hours, the teenager was lured into an online exchange on Instagram and tricked into sending explicit photos of himself. The scammers behind the account — two brothers from Lagos — blackmailed him, threatening to release the pictures unless the teenager sent them money.

"It was so callous and heartless," Buta told NPR. "As a mother, it just broke me to my core to hear that that's what he lived through and how he was tortured in the last moments of his life."

Buta welcomed Wednesday's action by Meta, but said more should be done.

"I hope that other social media platforms look at Meta's example and start doing this like this on their platforms. Because at the end of the day, if they are allowing this to happen on their social media platforms they are an accessory to this crime because they are allowing this to happen."

In June, FBI Director Chris Wray visited Nigeria, in part to urge the country's authorities to do more. It was the first known visit by an FBI director to Nigeria and he told NPR that the issue of sextortion was at the forefront of his discussions, including with the President Bola Tinubu.

"We're talking about kids between 10 and 17 years old, typically, but we've even seen victims as young as 7 years old. And one of the things that makes this crime so heartbreaking and difficult to detect is the victims are afraid and embarrassed," Wray said.

Cybercrime is a prominent but complicated issue in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, where residents are also suffering from online scams and from the response of Nigerian police, who are often accused of rights abuses.

DeMay's mother says she will continue to share her son's story.

"If I can reach one person, that might be one life that is saved because of what happened to Jordan," she says.

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, in the United States: Contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 9-8-8, or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

Internationally: Visit this website to find a hotline near you.