Meta Platforms announced on Wednesday that it had deleted approximately 63,000 Facebook accounts in Nigeria involved in financial sexual extortion schemes, primarily targeting adult men in the United States. Nigerian cybercriminals, commonly referred to as 'Yahoo boys', are well-known for a variety of scams, including impersonating individuals in financial distress or fictitious Nigerian royalty promising lucrative investments. Meta disclosed in a statement that the deleted accounts also encompassed a smaller, coordinated network of about 2,500 accounts associated with a group of approximately 20 individuals. 'They primarily targeted adult men in the US and utilized fake accounts to conceal their identities,' Meta stated. In cases of sexual extortion, or 'sextortion', victims are threatened with the distribution of compromising images, either genuine or fabricated, unless they pay to prevent their release. The investigation revealed that most of the scammers' efforts were unsuccessful, and while their main targets were adults, there were also attempts against minors, which Meta reported to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the US. The company noted that it employed a blend of newly developed technical indicators to identify sex extortion. Nigerian scammers have been dubbed '419 scams' after the relevant section of the country's penal code, which has proven ineffective in combating fraud. As economic conditions deteriorate in Nigeria, a country with over 200 million inhabitants, online fraud has increased, with operators often based in university dormitories, impoverished suburbs, or affluent areas. Meta reported that some accounts were offering advice on conducting scams. 'Their activities included selling scripts and guides for scamming individuals, and distributing links to collections of photos for use in creating fake accounts,' the company explained.