Meta’s Singapore Scam Crackdown: From Individual Accounts to Dormant Networks

A police referral can point to more than one suspicious account. In its two-year information-sharing partnership with the Singapore Police Force (SPF), Meta used those leads to investigate connected Facebook and Instagram assets—and, in 2026, to act against dormant pages before they could be used in scam campaigns. 22220

From referrals to connected networks

Between January and June 2026, SPF referred more than 20,000 accounts, pages and pieces of content to Meta after detecting signs of scams. Meta’s follow-up identified more than five times as many scam-linked assets as were initially flagged, according to reporting on the enforcement effort. That is the practical shift: investigating the surrounding network rather than stopping at the referred item. 219

What Meta acted against in 2026

• More than 113,000 fraud-linked entities and pages in the first half of the year, with content predominantly associated with investment scams. 22
• More than 33,600 entities in a June operation targeting e-commerce scams. 2931
• About 3.64 million dormant “shell pages” in July, identified after an SPF tip-off. Meta said these Facebook and Instagram pages had not yet been used for scams but could have supported future campaigns. 1720

SPF’s referrals included suspected schemes that used social media influencers’ identities to promote fictitious investments, as well as ads offering concert tickets, food and other goods at unusually low prices. 2 By September, Meta said it had acted against more than 3.7 million scam-linked assets in 2026. These figures count platform assets—not scammers, victims or prevented losses—and “action” can include restricting access as well as removal. 182022

What is known about arrests and public education

The cited partnership reports establish that SPF supplied leads for Meta’s platform investigations. They do not identify specific arrests resulting from information Meta returned to police, so an arrest total cannot be attributed to this exchange. 222

The available sources also do not establish the specific messages of the One Step Ahead campaign or which account-security features Meta, SPF and the National Crime Prevention Council promoted together. One verified resource is ScamShield: SPF directs people who are unsure whether something is a scam to its 24-hour helpline at 1799. 11