Security1 publisher2 min readPublished
Shell pages make up 3.64 million of Meta's 3.8 million Singapore scam takedowns
Meta acted on nearly 3.8 million scam-linked accounts and pages in 2026 using Singapore Police Force signals. Dormant shell pages from one July sweep make up 3.64 million of them, so the repeatable result is 20,000 police flags turning into 113,000 takedowns.
The Watch · Security desk
What happened
- Meta took action against nearly 3.8 million scam-linked entities, pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram in 2026, crediting information sharing with the Singapore Police Force.
- From January to June, SPF referred more than 20,000 Meta accounts, pages and pieces of content after detecting signals of scam activity.
- Over the same six months, Meta removed or restricted more than 113,000 linked entities and pages, more than five times the number police had flagged.
- During the June school holidays the two stepped up enforcement against a seasonal spike, dealing with more than 33,600 entities tied to investment and e-commerce scams.
Compiled by The WatchSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- capability Agencies that only see individual scam posts can get network-level takedowns by handing the signal to a platform whose investigators trace the linked accounts and pages.
- constraint Referral programmes elsewhere cannot use 3.8 million as their benchmark, since almost all of it came from a sweep of pages that had never run a scam.
- exposure Scam networks that stage empty pages ahead of a campaign can now lose that stock in bulk before it is ever switched on.
The three enforcement waves add to at least 3,786,600 [1]. The release rounds the year to nearly 3.8 million [1], so the waves appear to be counted separately. The July shell-page sweep is about 96 percent of that total [2]. The first-half referral work and the June holiday push together come to more than 146,600 [4].
Divide the first-half takedowns by the first-half referrals and each police flag led to roughly 5.7 removals or restrictions [3]. The release describes the step in between: Meta took SPF's information and investigated interconnected accounts, pages and entities tied to the same scam networks [8]. In the release's words, "a single signal from SPF can lead Meta's investigators to dismantle entire interconnected networks of bad actors" [9]. The flags covered influencer impersonation used to sell fictitious investment schemes, plus ads offering concert tickets, food and other goods at exceptionally low prices [4].
The July sweep has the weakest documented link to police intelligence. The release says all three waves used and built on information provided by SPF [15]. Meta's specialist investigators ran the July work, hunting for pages not yet used for scams [6]. The release does not say how many of the 3.64 million shell pages traced back to an SPF signal [6]. Every figure here comes from a joint Meta and SPF statement dated 22 September 2026 [14].
The June and July waves describe networks that hold stock and plan around dates. The June push was timed against a typical seasonal spike in investment scams and deceptive e-commerce during school holidays [5]. The shell pages looked empty or harmless and were pre-built to be switched on for a campaign at short notice, according to the release [7].
Daryl Poon, Meta's Director of Law Enforcement Outreach for APAC, said: "Scammers count on the fact that no single organisation sees the full picture." [10] Of SPF, he said "their information helps us identify threats we might not see on our own, and our ability to act at scale means those networks can be dismantled before they reach more people." [11]
Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Justin Wong, who heads SPF's Cyber Command, said: "By partnering closely with industry partners, we can share scam signals that allow our partners to take action to disrupt the criminal infrastructure behind these scams." [12]
What to watch
- Which online service providers besides Meta join the expanded data sharing that SPF's Justin Wong said is coming.
- Any 2026 figure from SPF or Meta on scam reports or losses in Singapore, the measure of whether the takedowns changed victim outcomes.
- A repeat shell-page sweep, and how many pages it finds, would show how fast operators rebuild removed stock.