Meta Platforms announced a coordinated legal and enforcement response Thursday aimed at advertisers and marketing consultants accused of running fraudulent campaigns on its services. The company filed lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions and issued cease-and-desist letters to eight marketing consultants it says were offering ways to bypass Meta's enforcement systems.
The lawsuits name several Brazil-based defendants, alleging they used manipulated images and synthetic voices of public figures to market fraudulent healthcare products. Meta sued Vitor Lourenço de Souza and Milena Luciani Sanchez over allegations that they promoted healthcare items using altered celebrity imagery and voice recordings. Additional litigation targets Brazil-based entities and individuals identified as B&B Suplementos e Cosméticos Ltda., Brites Academia de Treinamento Ltda., Daniel de Brites Macieira Cordeiro, and José Victor de Brites Chaves de Araújo. Those actions assert the use of deepfakes portraying a prominent physician to advertise healthcare products that lacked regulatory approval.
In China, Meta filed suit against Shenzhen Yunzheng Technology Co., Ltd, which the company says ran ads employing celebrity images to entice people in the United States and Japan into joining purported investment groups. According to the complaints, those advertisements used well-known faces as bait to recruit users into investment schemes.
Separately, Meta brought legal action in Vietnam against Lý Văn Lâm, accusing him of using cloaking techniques to evade the platform's ad review processes. The complaints say the campaigns offered purported discounts on branded goods - including items from Longchamp - in exchange for completing surveys. Users who engaged with those offers were allegedly redirected to third-party websites where they entered credit card details for goods they never received and began incurring unauthorized recurring charges.
Beyond filing suits, Meta described a set of immediate enforcement steps. The company said it suspended payment methods associated with the scams, disabled related platform accounts and blocked domain names used in the fraudulent campaigns. Meta also reported sharing relevant information with industry partners to aid broader takedown efforts.
The company said it cooperated with law enforcement in both the United Kingdom and Nigeria during an operation that helped dismantle a scam center; that effort led to seven arrests. Meta also highlighted a protective measure it has developed for public figures, noting protections now cover more than 500,000 celebrities and public figures worldwide whose images are repeatedly abused in scam schemes.
Alongside legal filings and technical countermeasures, Meta issued cease-and-desist letters to eight marketing consultants who allegedly promoted services designed to circumvent the company's enforcement mechanisms. The company did not provide additional details about those consultants in its statements.
What this means
Meta's actions combine litigation, technical blocks and information-sharing with peers and law enforcement to disrupt advertising scams that rely on synthetic media and evasion tactics. The cases span healthcare product claims, investment solicitation and deceptive retail offers, and the legal moves reflect the company's multifaceted approach to removing and deterring fraudulent activity on its platforms.