PTA, Meta Block 176,000 WhatsApp Accounts in Fraud CrackdownTechnology

Recycled numbers are mobile numbers that were disconnected by their previous owners and later issued to new customers. Fraudsters have exploited WhatsApp accounts still linked to such numbers to impersonate the previous owners, run scams and gain access to digital accounts. PTA has shared around 10 million recycled numbers with Meta for verification, and under a continuing arrangement it will share 5,000 more recycled numbers every month so the associated accounts can be identified and deactivated in phases.

Telecom operators in Pakistan hold around 16 million recycled numbers, according to officials, making the issue a significant risk for mobile users across the country.

The crackdown goes beyond WhatsApp. The PTA said 7.3 million grey-traffic SIMs have been suspended, 1.5 million web addresses have been blocked since 2023 in collaboration with Meta, and 45,000 websites identified as online gambling platforms have been shut down. Around 1,700 people have been arrested in operations against illegal SIM activation and 700 cases have been registered.

Meta resolved 82 percent of the complaints forwarded by the regulator over the previous year, officials said, reflecting the close working relationship between the two sides on digital safety.

Grey-traffic SIMs are SIM cards used to route international calls through illegal channels, bypassing the licensed gateways, while mule accounts are accounts used by criminals to receive and move money from fraud. Both have been a focus of the PTA’s enforcement work, alongside the crackdown on illegally activated SIMs.

The committee also discussed raising public awareness through SMS alerts so that mobile users can recognise fraud attempts. Officials say the permanent data-sharing system with Meta is designed to keep catching accounts linked to recycled numbers as they appear, rather than relying on one-off crackdowns.