More than 3.7 million Facebook and Instagram accounts, Pages and groups linked to West African scam networks have been taken down, Meta said on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, after a week-long joint operation in which nine suspects were arrested in Nigeria and 19 in Ghana. The US Department of Justice, which announced the results the same day, said raids in Ghana also uncovered 117 victims of human trafficking who are now waiting to be sent home to Nigeria.
That last figure changes how the story reads from Lagos or Warri. Many of the people sitting behind fake profiles were not career fraudsters but Nigerians held in compounds outside Accra and made to run scams, and Nigeria’s anti-trafficking agency, NAPTIP, has confirmed that returnees from the operation are being profiled and counselled. Ghana’s communications minister, Sam George, put the number repatriated at 120.
| Operation dates | Week beginning 6 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Hosted by | UK National Crime Agency, London |
| Arrests in Nigeria | 9, with 53 electronic devices seized |
| Arrests in Ghana | 19, with 303 electronic devices seized |
| Trafficking victims found in Ghana | 117, pending repatriation to Nigeria |
| Accounts, Pages and groups removed | More than 3.7 million |
| Suspected scam centres flagged | More than 30 |
| Potentially freezable funds | About $11 million, not yet recovered |
Delta State arrests and a Nigerian cybercrime team in the room
Nigeria took part through the Nigerian Joint Case Team on Cybercrimes and the Nigeria Police Force’s National Cybercrime Centre, according to the US Justice Department’s results statement, while the EFCC supported the Ghana operation alongside the UK’s National Crime Agency and the FBI. The NCA said the Nigerian arrests were made across Delta State, where officers recovered laptops, phones and routers. None of the suspects has been named, and no Nigerian agency has yet said what charges they face.
Ghana’s share of the operation was larger. The 19 suspects there were picked up in Sasaabi, near Accra, and the same raids identified 89 other scam victims with losses of about $8.3 million. Ghana’s Cyber Security Authority led that part of the operation, which it codenamed Operation Cyberhunt.
Seven of the biggest tech companies fed the investigation
Meta says it joined 14 other companies at the NCA’s London headquarters, among them Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Coinbase, Adobe and Starlink, to share what each platform could see about the same networks. Most of the 3.7 million accounts Meta removed appeared to be aimed at people in the US and UK, and the company listed the schemes it found, including investment scams, job or task scams, romance scams, fake police or military officers, goods that never arrive and “recovery” offers that promise to get back money already lost. Chris Sonderby of Meta said “Scams are a global threat that demand a global response”, and the full list of partners is in Meta’s announcement.
FBI Director Kash Patel said hundreds of devices were seized during the week. The $11 million figure refers to money investigators believe can be frozen, not cash that has been returned to anyone, so victims shouldn’t read it as a refund pool.
The scams in this sweep are the same ones landing in Nigerian inboxes
Although the operation focused on fraud aimed at Americans and Britons, every category on Meta’s list also targets people here, from “work from home” task jobs that ask you to pay before you earn, to investment groups promising daily crypto returns. Recovery scams deserve particular attention after a story like this one, because fraudsters often pose as investigators or lawyers and claim they can retrieve money seized in a crackdown for an upfront fee. No agency involved in this operation has asked victims to pay anything.
If a Facebook or Instagram account pushes you toward a payment, tap the three dots on the profile or message and choose Report, then block it. Online sellers who ask for money before delivery remain the most common trap for buyers, and our checklist for buying used phones online without getting scammed covers the checks that protect you there.
The Delta arrests are the first step of a process that still has to reach a Nigerian courtroom, and the trafficking cases show that some of the people typing those scam messages were victims too. For anyone scrolling past a too-good offer this week, the safest takeaway is that a removed account is quickly replaced, so the warning signs matter more than any single takedown.
