In West Africa, Meta and other tech giants help dismantle online scam centers

American judicial authorities on Tuesday welcomed the crucial role they believe played by Meta and other tech giants in the dismantling of an online scam center in Ghana, during a recent operation carried out jointly with Great Britain. The director of the FBI, the American federal police, had already mentioned this operation last week, announcing on X the arrest or questioning, in cooperation with the Ghanaian authorities, of more than 130 people. Many of these people were victims of human trafficking, forced to work in this online scam center, he said.

The operation was carried out in conjunction with the British Crime Control Agency (NCA), from the NCA headquarters in London, the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday, stressing that it was the first of its type in West Africa. In total, 19 suspected scammers were arrested and 303 electronic devices were seized in Ghana, detailed the ministry, reporting in a press release 117 victims of human trafficking “pending repatriation to Nigeria”. In addition, nine people were arrested in Nigeria, according to the same source.

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“Key role”

“The clues were provided to us voluntarily by a private partner. This is how we started” the investigation, Washington federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro said during an online press conference, saying she was “very proud to work with this partner, Meta”. “We removed 3.7 million accounts, pages and groups on Instagram and Facebook,” explained Rob Cochrane, an IT security manager at Meta, noting that this was the fourth such operation in which the company had been involved.