During the first six months of 2025, WhatsApp has taken down 6.8 million accounts that were “linked to criminal scam centers” targeting people online around that world, said its parent company Meta in an August 5, 2025 statement.
“Some of the most prolific sources of scams are criminal scam centers, often fueled by forced labor and operated by organized crime primarily in Southeast Asia.” “Based on our investigative insights into the latest enforcement efforts, we proactively detected and took down accounts before scam centers were able to operationalize them.”, the statement continues.
Recently WhatsApp, Meta and OpenAI disrupted scams efforts which we were able to link to a criminal scam center in Cambodia. These attempts ranged from offering payments for fake likes to enlisting others into a rent-a-scooter pyramid scheme, or luring people to invest in cryptocurrency.
WhatsApp is rolling out two new anti-scam tools to protect its users. A new safety overview will appear when someone who is not one of your contacts adds you to unknown groups, allowing users to review the details before deciding to stay or leave. Notifications remain silenced until users mark to stay. For one-on-one chats, WhatsApp is testing warnings when people not in your contacts initiate a message, offering more context to help users pause and think before engaging. These features help counter common scam tactics at scale and keep users safer on the platform.
Read more about it here.