WhatsApp detected and banned more than 6.8 million accounts linked to scam centers, most of them in Southeast Asia, according to Meta. WhatsApp and Meta worked with OpenAI to disrupt a scam traced to Cambodia that used ChatGPT to generate text messages containing a link to a WhatsApp chat to hook victims, according to the tech firms.

WhatsApp banned more than 6.8 million accounts linked to scam operations in the first half of this year, its parent company Meta said in a statement Tuesday. “As part of our ongoing proactive work to protect people from scams, WhatsApp detected and banned over 6.8 million accounts linked to scam centers,” the company said.

Meta on Tuesday said it shut nearly seven million WhatsApp accounts linked to scammers in the first half of this year and is ramping up safeguards against such schemes.WhatsApp detected and banned more than 6.