Meta Dismantles 3.8 Million Scam Linked Pages

Meta has intensified its battle against online fraud after intelligence supplied by the Singapore Police Force helped the technology giant take action against nearly 3.8 million scam linked entities and pages across Facebook and Instagram in 2026.

The enforcement campaign represents a significant shift in how authorities and technology platforms are confronting online scams. Instead of waiting for victims to report fraudulent advertisements or accounts after money has disappeared, investigators are increasingly attempting to identify and dismantle the networks supporting scams before they can reach potential victims.

Between January and June, Singapore police referred more than 20,000 suspicious accounts, pages and pieces of content to Meta after detecting indicators of scam activity. The cases included fraudulent investment promotions using the identities of social media personalities, bogus concert ticket offers and advertisements promoting goods at unusually low prices.

Meta said information supplied by police enabled its investigators to trace connections between suspicious entities, resulting in action against more than 113,000 accounts and pages associated with fraud during the first six months of the year. The number was more than five times the volume initially flagged by Singapore authorities.

Investigators identified approximately 3.64 million so called shell pages that appeared largely empty and harmless but were allegedly created as infrastructure capable of being activated for future scam campaigns. Meta removed the pages before they could be deployed.

The discovery highlights an increasingly industrial approach to online fraud. Criminal groups are no longer dependent solely on individual fake profiles created immediately before an attack. Large pools of apparently dormant online assets can instead be prepared in advance, allowing scam campaigns to be launched rapidly while making detection more difficult.

A separate operation in June targeted more than 33,600 entities associated with investment fraud, deceptive ecommerce promotions and other scam methods that authorities expected to intensify during Singapore's school holiday period.

As authorities across Southeast Asia strengthen cooperation with technology platforms, the battle is increasingly shifting from removing individual fraudulent advertisements to dismantling the digital machinery behind them. The discovery of millions of pages apparently prepared for future campaigns shows why that transition may be necessary.