Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, has announced that it shut down almost seven million WhatsApp accounts tied to fraudulent activities during the first half of 2025.
Clair Deevy, WhatsApp’s Director of External Affairs, revealed that the platform’s safety team proactively disabled the accounts before they could be fully activated by the criminal networks behind them.
According to Meta, many of these scams were orchestrated by organized crime groups and typically involved fake cryptocurrency investments and deceptive get-rich-quick schemes.
“There’s always a catch, and that should raise suspicion. Most scams require upfront payments in exchange for promised returns or quick profits,” WhatsApp stated in a recent blog post.
The company disclosed that over 6.8 million of the blocked accounts originated from scam centers in Southeast Asia.
In one particularly alarming case, Meta and WhatsApp collaborated with OpenAI to dismantle a fraud operation based in Cambodia. The scammers used ChatGPT to craft convincing messages containing links to WhatsApp chats, targeting unsuspecting victims.
To better protect users, WhatsApp has started rolling out new safety alerts. Now, when users are added to unfamiliar group chats by unknown contacts, the app will display a “safety overview” offering key information about the group, tips on identifying scams, and a one-tap option to leave the chat.
“We’ve all experienced it, strangers messaging us or adding us to random groups claiming you’re owed money or offering easy investment returns,” Meta wrote. “These are often scammers manipulating trust, kindness, or fear to get people to send money.”
The tech giant emphasized its ongoing commitment to user safety and said more protections will be introduced in the coming months as digital scams continue to evolve.
