Many of the accounts were linked to criminal groups operating in South East Asia, the social media giant said.

Meta took down 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts tied to scam operations on Tuesday after victims reported financial fraud schemes. The company said many of the scam sources were based in Southeast Asia at criminal scam centers.

WhatsApp has taken down 6.8 million accounts that were “linked to criminal scam centers” targeting people online around the world, its parent company Meta said this week.