Meta takes down thousands of Facebook accounts running sextortion scams from Nigeria Boston 25 News [Video]

Meta says it has taken down about 63,000 Facebook accounts in Nigeria that were engaging in financial sextortion scams — along with groups and pages that were trying to organize, recruit and train new scammers.

Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors. Recent high-profile cases include two Nigerian brothers who pleaded guilty to sexually extorting teen boys and young men in Michigan, including one who took his own life, and a Virginia sheriff’s deputy who sexually extorted and kidnapped a 15-year-old girl.

There has been a marked rise in sextortion cases in recent years, fueled in part by a loosely organized group called the Yahoo Boys, operating mainly out of Nigeria, Meta said, adding that it removed Facebook accounts and groups run by the group under its “dangerous organizations and individuals” policy.

In January, the FBI …