Billionaire’s Suit Dismissed: Scam Crypto Ads on Meta

The District Court of Western Australia has dropped a lawsuit brought by Australian mining billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest against Meta, formerly known as Facebook. Forrest alleged that fraudulent cryptocurrency advertisements on Meta platforms, featuring his image, caused significant financial losses to innocent individuals. Prosecutors determined that there was insufficient evidence to support his claims.

In February 2022, Forrest, who serves as the chairman of Fortescue Metals and is Australia’s second-richest person, personally filed criminal charges against Meta under the Commonwealth Criminal Code Anti-Money Laundering sections. He accused Meta of knowingly profiting from illegal advertisements and failing to remove them. Approval from the Australian attorney general was required for Forrest to proceed with the lawsuit.

Forrest had previously written an open letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November 2019, urging the company to remove fraudulent ads and prevent the misuse of his image. Meta pleaded not guilty to the charges in December. A spokesperson for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions confirmed to Reuters that the suit was dropped due to a lack of evidence but provided no further details.

Responding to the court’s decision, Forrest expressed his concern that Facebook seemed to be operating outside the laws of Australia and failing to protect hardworking Australians from scams facilitated by advanced technology on social media platforms. He argued that these platforms bear no responsibility for the proliferation of scams.

In its response, Meta stated that it does not want scams on its platforms and remains committed to tirelessly preventing them and safeguarding its users. Despite Forrest’s legal actions, scams featuring his image have continued, with deep-fake images of Forrest appearing in Facebook ads discovered by Cybertrace in February.

Separately, on April 4, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, filed a lawsuit against two individuals in China, alleging that they were behind scam apps that had been downloaded from the platform over 100,000 times. These actions illustrate the ongoing challenges faced by tech companies in combating fraudulent activities on their platforms.