Meta Files Lawsuits Against Celeb-Bait Ad Scammers

Meta is taking a new wave of legal actions targeting celeb-bait scams, schemes that exploit images and likenesses of celebrities to lure users into fraudulent ads and websites. Meta is filing lawsuits against multiple groups in Brazil, China, and Vietnam, aiming to establish stronger legal precedents and deter widespread scam activity across its platforms. The lawsuits focus on three Brazil-based operations:

• Vitor Lourenço de Souza and Milena Luciani Sanchez, who used altered celebrity images and AI-generated voices to promote fake healthcare products.
• 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, who employed deepfakes of a prominent physician to advertise unapproved health products and sold courses teaching similar tactics.
• Shenzhen Yunzheng Technology Co., Ltd. (China-based), which ran celeb-bait ads targeting users in the U.S., Japan, and other countries as part of a broader investment fraud scheme.

Meta is also suing a Vietnam-based group for cloaking scams – techniques that evade ad review systems – and has issued cease-and-desist letters to eight former Meta Business Partners offering abusive services, such as fake account restoration and rented access to trusted accounts.

These actions build on Meta’s ongoing anti-scam efforts. Over the past year, the company has pursued legal cases against illegal online gambling, data scraping, and AI-generated explicit images. In early 2026, Meta collaborated with U.K. and Nigerian law enforcement to dismantle a scam center, leading to seven arrests. The results are measurable: Meta reported a more than 50% decline in scam ads over the previous 15 months, and in the first half of 2025, its teams detected and disrupted nearly 12 million accounts linked to criminal scam centers across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Given the prominence of Meta’s various social platforms, this strengthened effort to cull scams and bad actors makes sense. As more and more alternative platforms crop up that users would be able to switch to with relative ease, improiving the user experience (and overall scam protection efforts) of apps like WhatsApp becomes increasingly more important.