Meta announced a new series of legal actions against celeb-bait scams, with the hope that these measures will act as a significant disincentive to stop scammers from duping users with fake endorsements.
Celeb-bait schemes use images of public figures to trick people into engaging with ads that lead to scam websites. Meta has been working to address this, with new elements such as facial ID scanning for high-profile users, in order to detect unauthorised use of their image.
And now, Meta is filing lawsuits against three scam groups to combat this practice:
- Brazil-based Vitor Lourenço de Souza and Milena Luciani Sanchez, who used altered images and voices of celebrities to promote fraudulent healthcare products.
- Brazil-based B&B Suplementos e Cosméticos Ltda. (Brites Corp), Brites Academia de Treinamento Ltda., Daniel de Brites Macieira Cordeiro, and José Victor de Brites Chaves de Araújo, which took part in a scam operation that used deepfakes of a prominent physician to advertise healthcare products without regulatory approval and sold courses teaching the same tactics.
- China-based Shenzhen Yunzheng Technology Co., Ltd, which used celeb-bait ads to target people in the US and Japan, among other countries, as part of a larger fraud scheme that lured people into joining so-called investment groups.
Meta could be hoping any legal penalties handed down in each case will establish a tougher legal precedent for celeb-bait scams. These actions could also act as an expanded deterrent for others.
On another front, Meta is filing a lawsuit against a Vietnam-based group for cloaking scams, which aim to restrict Meta’s ad review systems. In addition, Meta has sent out cease and desist letters to eight former Meta Business Partners who offered abusive services, including phony account restoration services and rented access to trusted accounts.
The expanded legal actions are part of Meta’s efforts to better protect users via stronger legal pushback against scam activity.
Over the past year, Meta has launched legal action against illegal online gambling operations, data scraping projects, and the use of artificial intelligence to generate nude or sexually explicit images.
Earlier this month, Meta reported that it had also worked with law enforcement in the U.K. and Nigeria to help take down a scam center, which resulted in seven arrests.
And those efforts are paying off. In December, Meta reported that scam ads had declined by more than 50% in the preceding 15 months, while in the first half of 2025, its teams detected and disrupted nearly 12 million accounts across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp that had been associated with criminal scam centers.
