The company announced that it took down over 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts linked to criminal scam centers targeting people around the world.

WhatsApp says it has taken down 6.8 million accounts linked to scammers targeting people around the world in the first half of this year. Many were tied to scam centres run by organised criminals in South East Asia, who often used forced labour in their operations, the Meta-owned messaging platform says.

This is WhatsApp’s latest effort to tighten the reins on fraud attempts that often start with unsolicited group adds, a tactic used frequently in spammy job scams or cryptocurrency cons.