Scammers exploit Meta platforms with illegal drug and alcohol ads
Authentic Myanmar Yaba, only BDT 130 per pill. Minimum order: 20 tablets for home delivery. From Blenders Pride, Jack Daniel’s, and Old Monk to local Carew—both domestic and imported liquors at unbeatable prices. Pay BDT 350 in advance, and your order will be delivered anywhere in Bangladesh in just eight hours.
These ads, openly promoting illegal narcotics and alcohol, have been running unchecked on Meta platforms in recent weeks. This investigation by Dismislab uncovered at least 37 Facebook pages brazenly selling illicit drugs, with 30 of them running ads on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. Despite the company’s stated policies against advertising of unsafe substances and alcohol in Bangladesh, its moderation system is failing to enforce these rules.
Many of these ads are not standalone cases but part of a broader network of online fraud. Some operations don’t deliver the products they advertise, scamming customers outright. Some mix illegal sales with promotions for seemingly legitimate goods—mobile phones, car accessories, footwear—blurring the line between black-market trade and mainstream commerce. These ads and related pages violate Meta’s own policies on fraud, scams, and deceptive practices, yet the platform continues to profit from it.
Ads featuring narcotics
Although not banned, liquor is a controlled product in Bangladesh. Its production, sale, transport, storage, and even consumption require licences and are regulated by Alcohol Control Rules 2022 and the Narcotics Control Act 2018. Meta’s own restricted goods and services advertising standards also strictly prohibits the sale of any illegal or recreational drugs, unsafe substances, products, or supplements. Additionally, Meta’s alcohol advertising policies ban the sale of alcoholic products in 18 countries, including Bangladesh.
However, Dismislab found 30 Facebook pages actively promoting illegal drug sales through advertisements. By searching explicit keywords like “Gaja,” “Yaba,” “Mod,” and “Alcohol,” between February 6 and 13, this author documented at least 10 pages running ads daily, often featuring images and videos of illegal substances. Nine other pages were running ads on Instagram, while five used Messenger to distribute similar contents.
These advertisements featuring alcohol, Phensedyl (an addictive opioid syrup), Yaba (methamphetamine-based drug), and cannabis claimed to offer special discounts during religious and national festivals – when demand for narcotics shoots up, especially among the youth – for prices too good to be true. Some of the pages running these ads include Benapole Drinks Corner, Bhomra Border Drink Corner Satkhira, BD Liquor Shop, Mod er Bazar Benapole, Bagan Port er Sharbat House, and Indian Alcohol Bar Center. Most of these pages list their locations in Bangladesh-India border areas such as Bhomra Border in Satkhira, Kalaroa, Darshana Border in Chuadanga, and Benapole in Jessore. They explicitly claim to sell Indian black market liquor and other products, offering nationwide home delivery.
In a constant hunt for new targets, these pages frequently repost similar videos and advertisements and almost each of them includes a walkthrough of an alcohol bar, and in some cases, bar employees can be seen speaking on camera. Further investigation into two such advertisements revealed that the videos were stolen from a YouTube channel named “Bishwa Neel Wine“. According to the channel’s details, the footage originates from a wine shop located in North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India.
The 30 pages analyzed for this research are relatively new, created between 2023 and 2025. Although these pages have yet to garner a large army of followers, their sponsored ads generate significant engagement, meaning their revenue model seems to work just fine for them. For example, the page named Satkhira Drinks Corner has 830 likes and 2k followers, yet its ad received 10,000 reactions, about 1 million views, and 97 shares. Sponsored ads on other pages also generated high engagement through advertising.
According to Meta’s ad review process, automated tools check an ad’s images, videos, text, targeting, and landing pages for policy violations before it runs. The ad remains “in review” until approved, usually within 24 hours. Any explicit words or imagery should be automatically flagged and rejected during this initial review. However, the pages analyzed for this research are bypassing the Meta policy to advertise illegal substances.
Conditional delivery scam
For further investigation, Dismislab researchers posed as buyers and attempted to place an order for cannabis and Yaba on Satkhira Drinks Corner. We contacted the WhatsApp number provided on the page, and a person on the other side demanded an advance of BDT 350 for the order to be delivered the next morning. We made the payment via a popular mobile financial service (MFS), and immediately received a receipt. Maintaining anonymity, Dismislab called the number several times and spoke with two individuals who identified themselves as Utpal Kumar Dutta and Mohammad Nayeem Islam.
The supposed seller explained their delivery process thus: due to the illicit nature of the products, delivery would follow a conditional supply arrangement. The package would be sent via RedX, a reputed delivery service. Once it reached the local RedX office, the delivery agent would call the buyer and request an OTP (one-time password). The buyer must make the remaining payment via the same MFS number used for the advance to get the OTP from the seller before the package can be delivered. We agreed. But after receiving the full payment, the supposed seller claimed that the transaction did not reflect the correct amount due to missing transaction fees, preventing the release of the product. They insisted on an additional payment, promising that the delivery agent would refund the previous amount. When Dismislab refused, the person on the other side cut off communication.
Dismislab attempted to buy liquor from another page–Indian Black Liquor Market. This time, the supposed seller demanded an advance payment of BDT 200, and introduced the same “conditional delivery” process through RedX. The following day, someone posing as a delivery agent called, asked for an OTP, and tried to confirm the exact delivery location, claiming to be nearby. He also insisted on the OTP transfer, but when the full payment wasn’t made, the so-called delivery agent never showed up.
RedX confirmed to Dismislab that it does not have any such “conditional delivery” service. RedX also warned against making advance payments to delivery agents before the delivery and acknowledged that they had been investigating several complaints about similar scams. The company even issued a public warning on its official Facebook page about such scams.
The scheme resembles the global scam network that Meta itself has identified recently and refers to as “pig butchering”. The operational method, executed in several stages, of the global network and the one detected in Bangladesh is very similar.
In the first stage, scammers use ads to reach a wide audience with fake product promotions. These ads are often sophisticated, featuring detailed product descriptions, specifications, and short videos. In many instances, scammers also steal ads from well-known brands and repurpose them to make their offers look legitimate.
In the second stage, they move the conversation to a separate messaging platform, such as WhatsApp. They attempt to build trust with potential buyers, and engage in lengthy discussions, sometimes using audio recordings or phone calls, to persuade victims into making payments.
An organised network of fraudulent pages
Dismislab identified 50 unique phone numbers linked to the 30 Facebook pages found in the Ad Library. Each number was verified using Truecaller, WhatsApp, and the registered name on the associated mobile financial service (MFS) account. None of the numbers were flagged as scams on Truecaller. Notably, 32 of the MFS accounts were registered under women’s names.
A Facebook search (January 1, 2024 – February 15, 2025) using these phone numbers revealed overlapping connections—28 numbers were linked to multiple Facebook pages. However, these pages did not just advertise alcohol or drugs; many posed as legitimate businesses, selling products and services such as mobile phones, shoes, furniture, fish, drones, and even helicopter rentals.
Most followed the same pattern: offering low prices, demanding advance payments, and never delivering the goods.
Through this process, Dismislab mapped a network of 71 Facebook pages—37 openly selling alcohol and illegal substances and 34 operating as legal fronts.
Some of these pages post fake pictures of customer reviews of their products. However, Dismislab found multiple users posting reviews with the identical pictures. On the other hand, many victims warned others about these scam pages in the comment sections, while others publicly posted their grievances on Facebook about how they were deceived.
“Do not make any financial transactions with this ID,” wrote one user named MD Mamun and shared the “Bhomra Border Drink Corner Satkhira” page. Multiple people commented about being scammed by this page. One user named Ripon Sagor BD commented that he was scammed, in the same way the Dismislab team was conned during the investigation. Another person commented that his friend lost BDT 7,500 to these scammers.
The investigation also uncovered the connections between these illicit drug suppliers and their so-called legal fronts—businesses that appear to sell legitimate products but, in reality, are fronts for fraud. Take, for example, a user named Mia Masum, who shared a screenshot from a page called Auto Mart, which advertised car parts. “They took my money but didn’t deliver the product,” he wrote. “They scammed me. What can I do? How can I take action against them?” His complaint is just one of many.
The phone number listed for Auto Mart was also used by another page, “India Drinks Corner,.1” which was advertising alcohol and drugs. The same number was linked to five more online businesses.
To avoid detection, some of these pages even changed their names during our investigation. For instance, the page “India Drinks Corner..1” was previously called “BD Helmet Gallery,” while “Indian Black Liquor Market” was earlier known as “Time Zone”. While working on this report, two pages—”BD Seel Bazaar” and “Drinks Corner“—deleted all previous alcohol-related posts and began advertising watches and helmets instead. “Drinks Corner” has now been rebranded as “Unique Helmet Shop,” although it still has the same contact number.
These pages violate Meta’s Fraud, Scams, and Deceptive Practices advertising standards by using deception—such as misrepresentation, stolen data, and exaggerated claims—to defraud users and businesses, manipulate engagement, and scam people out of money, property, or personal information.
Using stolen content for fake advertisements
Using stolen images and videos from legitimate businesses to create deceptive advertisements is another common feature of some of these pages. Just as many of the alcohol ads were taken from an Indian bar, other product advertisements followed the same pattern.
For instance, Drone Bangla BD, a store in Banglamotor, Dhaka, issued a warning about the scam page BD Drone Camera Store, which had been using their promotional videos for fraudulent activities. The phone number listed for BD Drone Camera Store was also linked to multiple fraudulent pages, including Chuadanga Drinks-7, Chuadanga Border Drink Corner, Bangladeshi ENTER PRISE, and BD Smart Watch.Com.
Further analysis of the receipt from Satkhira Drinks Corner, where Dismislab attempted to order Yaba and cannabis for the purpose of this investigation, revealed links to another entity—Russell Electronics. The name and contact details for Russell Electronics BD also appeared in the Satkhira Drinks Corner seller’s WhatsApp profile, with a listed address in Gazipur. The page primarily sold sewing machines. Upon investigation, videos posted there were traced back to another seller, Rana Enterprise, whose YouTube channel contained the original footage. In a recent video, the owner of Rana Enterprise warned that their content was being stolen and misused for fraudulent activities.
Running ads with stolen content from other business entities can infringe on third-party intellectual property rights, even if the product being promoted is legal. This includes using unauthorized images, logos, or branding that belong to another business. These ads typically aim to mislead customers and scam people out of money, which is considered an unacceptable business practice in advertising and goes against ad transparency policies.
Additionally, using fake IDs, Facebook pages, or other inauthentic assets to operate fraudulent networks, as some of these scam pages do, violates Meta’s community standards on inauthentic behavior.
Meta profits from the scam ads
Meta also profits from these scam illegal substances ads. For example, Dismislab identified a Facebook page of BCT Center Digital Tech Solution that claims to be an advertising agency and shared multiple posts containing screenshots of campaigns for the scam pages. One fraudulent campaign promoting a fake video under the name of Chuadanga Drinks Corner had an ad budget of $25.77, generating 1,126 messaging interactions. Another campaign using the same fake alcohol video had a budget of $74.95, which drew 3,384 engagements.
For context, if 50 scam pages each run at least one ad campaign per month, spending an average of $50 per campaign, their total monthly ad spend would be $2,500—over BDT 300,000—directly contributing to Meta’s revenue.
In 2024, Meta generated over $160 billion in ad revenues.
Methodology
To investigate Facebook ads promoting illicit drugs and alcohol in Bangladesh, we conducted a one-week keyword search in Meta’s Ad Library and identified 30 pages actively running these ads. We collected metadata, including contact details, locations, and page transparency information, and fact-checked sample images and videos to verify authenticity.
To understand the financial transactions involved, we contacted all 30 pages and requested mobile numbers used for mobile financial service (MFS). Twenty pages provided payment details, resulting in 50 unique phone numbers. We then searched Facebook using these numbers, restricting the search from January 1, 2024 to February 16, 2025. We uncovered 41 more pages linked to these numbers.
