Richest Aussie sues Facebook for being medium for scammers

Sydney: Australian industrialist and richest man in the country, Andrew Forrest announced his move to sue social media platform Facebook for alleged violation of anti-money laundering laws and being a medium for scamming Australians, Reuters reported.

The chairman of Fortescue Metals Group alleged that his picture is used in Facebook for clickbait advertisement scams that promote cryptocurrency schemes, and he took the decision to move in court to stop people from losing money.

In his petition filed at the Magistrates Court of Western Australia, he alleged that Facebook failed in creating controls to prevent its systems from being used in crimes. He said that Facebook is reckless since it did not take any step to stop criminals from using it to swindle Australians.

His decision to file the lawsuit was after many requests to Facebook to prevent his image from being used in the promotion of investment plans. He had written Meta, parent to Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg more than two years ago. His image started appearing in Facebook ads in March 2019.

Forrest has received the Attorney General's consent to move forward since Australian law mandates the same for a private prosecution of a foreign corporation for alleged offences under the Commonwealth Criminal Code. If Facebook is ruled guilty, it will have to pay a penalty of 90,000 US dollars, according to Forest's counsel, while the initial hearing is scheduled on March 28.

Last year, Forest had filed a civil suit against Facebook in the Superior Court of California.