Manhattan’s hard-nosed District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who secured 34 felony convictions against President Trump, is taking on Meta to hold the social media company accountable for immigration scams growing like wildfire on its platforms. 

In a recent letter, Bragg urged Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to act to stop the scams, which he said were difficult to prosecute, and requested a meeting with the company’s representatives. 

Bragg noted that imposter accounts were using Meta’s platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp to “falsely pose as pro bono legal services organizations, such as Catholic Charities” and then extract money for assistance from the victims. The funds typically make their way overseas, hampering prosecution and recovery. 

“These scams are especially dangerous because they target a vulnerable population who are in situations of emotional distress,” says Miks Aalto, cofounder and CEO at Hoxhunt. Impersonating trusted legal organizations or charities lends a sense of urgency that prompts victims to respond more quickly. 

The speed of the cycle makes pinning attackers and punishing them more difficult. “Even when fake accounts are reported and removed, attackers can create new ones very quickly using the same tactics but with just enough adaptations to fool the filters,” says Aalto, noting that AI is accelerating the “endless game of whack-a-mole.” 

While the Manhattan DA’s office “investigates and prosecutes these crimes when able, your company can play an important role in protecting users from fraud and theft,” Bragg wrote, pointing out that the imposter accounts stand in violation of Meta’s terms of service that prohibit “accounts that provide false information or engage in unlawful or misleading conduct.” 

But Meta doesn’t seem to be following its own terms for removing those accounts. “We have spoken with at least two institutional leaders of pro bono legal services organizations whose requests to remove false profiles were declined despite following this reporting protocol,” Bragg wrote.  

For Meta, protection seems to be a matter of priorities. The company “has built moderation that protects celebrities and abandons nonprofits, and scammers exploit that asymmetry as operational cover,” says Collin Hogue-Spears, senior director of solution management at Black Duck.  

He says that scammers “bought Facebook ads, cloned nonprofit logos, and migrated victims into WhatsApp where no moderation algorithm can follow.” 

About one-third of all Catholic Charities agencies across the U.S. “have reported impersonation campaigns using their names and branding to extract payments from immigrants” but when “verified institutional leaders reported their own impersonators through Meta’s official process, Meta declined the removal requests.” 

The reporting button, Hogue-Spears says, “exists to satisfy an audit… not to stop a scammer; it is a suggestion box.” 

If Meta is sincere about protecting its users as the company has claimed repeatedly, Bragg said it must “take necessary, proactive steps” to do so.  

To that end, Bragg asked Zuckerberg to: 

1) Add a reporting option to your Law Enforcement Online Requests Portal, allowing agencies like our office to report imposter accounts engaged in criminal conduct directly to Meta.  

2) Prioritize addressing reports of imposter accounts where criminality is alleged and temporarily suspend those accounts while the investigation is conducted.  

3) Ensure users claiming to represent organizations like legal services providers match the geographic locations of those organizations by strengthening verification tools and analyzing existing user data, such as IP address location. 

Noting that the problem doesn’t belong solely to Meta but rather is a platform problem, Trey Ford, chief strategy and trust officer at Bugcrowd, says, “the DA’s letter should be a forcing function for the entire industry to build law enforcement escalation paths that match the severity of criminal activity, not just the volume of reports.” 

What the DA is really describing, he says, “is an industry-wide gap — social platforms were architected for growth and connection, not for the kind of trust verification that criminal impersonation demands.” 

Outreach to the communities affected is critical, too. “We all must understand that if someone contacts you offering legal help or financial assistance through social media or messaging apps, don’t rely on the message itself, even if it appears to come from a source you’ve spent your life trusting, like church services,” says Aalto. “Verification and critical thinking are essential. Reach out to the organization through official channels to confirm the offer of assistance is real.” Good advice, although that might be a tall order for immigrants spooked by aggressive actions taken by ICE in the last year and who may be hesitant to reach out.