According to a statement posted by the department, detectives took 51-year-old Quarla Blackwell into custody at her residence in North Carolina on Tuesday (December 23) without incident. Police said Blackwell faces four counts of money laundering and two counts of gambling. The department added that the investigation remains ongoing and that additional charges are possible.

In a separate social media post, an account claiming to belong to Blackwell shared a video Tuesday showing police vehicles pulling up in front of a residence where she was present. The same account later stated that she had spent two days in jail. In a written post, she said, “As long as I’ve been playing on these fish tables now it’s a crime.” Fish table games are a type of casino game, where players take control of a cannon, aim, shoot, and try to catch as many fish as possible.

Police vehicles are seen outside a residence in Kinston during an investigation announced by authorities. Credit: Quarla Blackwell / Facebook

Police have not commented on the video or the statements attributed to Blackwell. Authorities stressed that the charges are allegations and that the case will proceed through the court system. Blackwell is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

Former city council candidate faces gambling charges in Kinston Facebook probe

According to Gambling America, Blackwell is a former city council candidate and well-known community activist. She has faced legal scrutiny before. In September, she was charged with perjury in connection with disclosures filed during her run for Kinston’s at-large city council seat. Warrants allege she reported that her rights had been restored as of 2025, when police say they were not scheduled to be restored until 2028.

Blackwell later filed an election protest seeking a new vote, saying she had evidence of irregularities. The State Board of Elections reviewed her claims last week during a meeting in Raleigh and denied the request.

Featured image: Kinston Police Department via Facebook

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Last year, Meta forecast it would earn $16 billion – or 10% of its revenue – by running scam ads, according to bombshell documents obtained last month by Reuters. Critics say the eye-popping number confirms that fraud has effectively become a core part of the company’s business — especially at Facebook, which boasts more than 3 billon monthly active users.

The documents revealed Meta bans accounts only if its systems flag an at least 95% chance that they are committing fraud — an absurdly high bar that invites fraudsters with minimal policing, critics say. What’s more, the more suspicious the ad buyer, the higher the fees for posting ads — a supposed deterrent to bad behavior which instead amounts to “pay to play,” experts say.

Lawmakers have called on Mark Zuckerberg to face a federal investigation over the scam ads. AP

Erin West, a former California prosecutor who has founded a nonprofit to combat online scams, said the documents prove Meta is turning a blind eye to the fraud because it is a “major moneymaker” for the company.

“To know that Facebook is aware of this and they tolerate it – and in fact, they even command additional fees from the worst offenders – is egregious,” West said. “The practice itself is outrageous, jaw-dropping, unacceptable, but when you think about it story by story, it really becomes horrific.”

SafelyHQ, a fraud reporting platform, has collected more than 50,000 verified complaints from online scam victims. When the reports mention where the victims got scammed, Facebook is cited a whopping 85% of the time, according to data exclusively obtained by The Post.

Other platforms, including Meta-owned Instagram, Google, TikTok, and X account for the remaining 15%.

The reports are only a tiny fraction of the big picture, according to Patrick Quade, the CEO and founder of SafelyHQ. The Federal Trade Commission says most fraud goes unreported, and Quade says just 12% of scam victims who submit reports identify a host site.

Facebook is cited for hosting scam ads more than any other platform. SafelyHQ

“For 50,000 people to find us and independently document their losses implies a victim count in the tens of millions,” Quade told The Post. “This isn’t ‘cherry-picking’—it is the overflow of a systemic failure that Meta’s own documents confirm.”

Brian Kuhn, a 68-year-old California resident, says he was scammed out of $70 while trying to buy classic vinyl records by James Brown, The Dead Kennedys, Bob Dylan and the Buzzcocks from a “going out of business” sale on Facebook. The sale turned out to be a fake, and the records never arrived.

“It felt a little creepy that they seemed to know my taste so well,” Kuhn told The Post. “I somehow blame myself equally, but that doesn’t excuse Facebook from allowing the thieves to prey on people.”

Meta’s scam ad epidemic has drawn attention on Capitol Hill, where US Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have demanded a federal investigation.

“Perversely, Meta reportedly charges higher rates for ads that it suspects might be fraudulent — in effect, imposing a scam tax that provides an additional lucrative revenue stream that it knows is tied to fraud,” the senators wrote in Nov. 22 letter.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the leaked documents “present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams.”

Just a fraction of people who report scams identify where they saw the ad in the first place. SafelyHQ

Stone said Meta’s practice of charging suspected scammers more in its ad auctions have proven effective, with internal tests showing a decline in scam reports as well as a slight decline in ad revenue. The company also recently said it has expanded its advertiser verification efforts.

“We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it and we don’t want it either,” Stone said in a statement. “Scammers are persistent criminals whose efforts, often driven by ruthless cross-border criminal networks that operate on a global scale, continue to grow in sophistication and complexity.”

Over the last 15 months, the company said reports about scam ads have declined by more than 50%. Meta has removed more than 134 million scam ads this year alone.

The internal documents obtained by Reuters showed Meta researchers have been warning for years about the extent of the company’s ad fraud problem, and how it seemed to be trailing rivals in cracking down.

One May 2025 presentation estimated that Meta was involved in one-third of all successful scams in the US, the report said. In a separate April 2025 review, the company concluded it was “easier to advertise scams on Meta platforms than Google.”

SafelyHQ’s data shows scams are rife all over the country. SafelyHQ

In October, a Delaware-based Facebook user named Betty got scammed by a Facebook ad for Laura Geller cosmetics. She said she was suspicious because the goods were cheap and required PayPal, but decided to buy anyway because the ad featured Laura Geller’s logo and branding.

Instead, she got cheap knockoff products from a Chinese label she didn’t recognize.

“Believe me, that’s all you see are ads,” Betty said. “You like one thing or look at something or you make a comment about one thing and then these ads appear. Obviously, some are fake and you can tell that. Some are really good – they’re fake, but you really can’t tell at first.”

In total, SafelyHQ has compiled more than 5,000 verified reports of scam ads specifically on Facebook and Instagram.

A teenager poses for a photo while holding a smartphone in front of a Facebook logo in this illustration taken September 11, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration REUTERS

“The ‘fox’ isn’t even guarding the hen house – it’s charging a toll for other foxes to walk right in,” Quade said. “This is an epidemic. Meta’s system is algorithmically trapping regular citizens in e-commerce scams, while their policy protects $16 billion in scam revenue. The time for voluntary oversight is over.”

Online watchdog Consumer Reports has also called on the FTC and state attorneys general to clamp down.

The “elephant in the room” is Meta’s reliance on protections offered by Section 230, which protects social media sites from being held liable for third-party content, according to Justin Brookman, Consumer Report’s director of tech policy.

Policy tweaks, such as adding an exception for Section 230 for paid advertising, would force Meta to take action, he argued.

Meta allows suspected scammers to buy ads at a higher rate. AFP via Getty Images

“It would certainly realign the incentives to make Meta care more about all the fraud and scams and illegal activity on their platforms,” said Brookman.

The real fix, according to Quade, won’t come until regulators begin treating high-volume ad gatekeepers like Meta as if they are financial institutions rather than social media companies.

That could include strict “know your consumer” or “know your business” rules requiring Meta to properly vet its advertising partners at its own cost.

“You can’t let the company profiting from the crime be the one in charge of stopping it,” Quade said.

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The Facebook and Instagram parent now expects capital expenditures to be between $66 billion and $72 billion, compared with its prior projection of $64 billion and $72 billion.

The move follows a similar announcement by Big Tech rival Alphabet, which last week raised its capital spending outlook by $10 billion to $85 billion on the back of strong AI-driven growth in its search and cloud businesses.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build massive AI data centers, having shelled out $14.3 billion for a stake in startup Scale AI. AP

Second-quarter revenue rose 22% to $44.5 billion, beating estimates. Profit surged 36% to $18.3 billion.

Training and deploying advanced AI systems remain a capital-intensive endeavor, requiring costly hardware, massive computing resources and top-tier engineering talent.

After a lackluster reception for its Llama 4 model that led to staff departures, Meta has tried to revitalize its AI push by sparking a high-stakes talent war that has seen it dole out more than $100 million pay packages to researchers from rival firms.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build massive AI data centers, having shelled out $14.3 billion for a stake in startup Scale AI and poached its 28-year-old billionaire CEO Alexandr Wang.

To fund the push, the billionaire founder is leaning on Meta’s massive user base as well as AI-powered improvements in content engagement that make it a stable bet for advertisers even in times of economic uncertainty.

Zuckerberg’s is betting on Meta’s massive user base as well as AI-powered improvements in content engagement that make it a stable bet for advertisers even in times of economic uncertainty. REUTERS

The social media giant recently introduced an AI-driven image-to-video ad creation tool under its Advantage+ suite, allowing marketers to generate video ads from static images.

Instagram, whose Reels product competes with ByteDance’s TikTok and YouTube Shorts for ad dollars in the popular short video format, is set to account for more than half of Meta’s ad revenue in the US this year, according to research firm eMarketer.

Meta has also accelerated efforts to monetize its social media platforms WhatsApp and Threads by integrating ads.

Instagram, whose Reels product competes with ByteDance’s TikTok and YouTube Shorts for ad dollars in the popular short video format, is set to account for more than half of Meta’s ad revenue in the .. this year, according to research firm eMarketer. AFP via Getty Images

The company last month named insider Connor Hayes as head of Threads, a sign it was moving the platform away from Instagram’s shadow after leaning on the photo-sharing app for growth.

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Instagram and Facebook have recently blurred, blocked or removed posts from two abortion pill providers. Instagram also suspended the accounts of several abortion pill providers and hid the providers from appearing in search and recommendations.

The actions ramped up in the last two weeks, and were especially noticeable in the last two days, abortion pill providers said. Content from their accounts — or in some cases, their entire accounts — were no longer visible on Instagram.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, confirmed some account suspensions and the blurring of posts. The company restored some of the accounts and posts on Thursday, after The New York Times asked about the actions.

Meta has been under scrutiny since Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive, announced sweeping changes to the company’s speech policies earlier this month. Mr. Zuckerberg vowed to loosen restrictions on online speech, causing concerns among misinformation researchers and others that the shifts could cause a spike in hate speech and have other harmful effects.

Meta said the moderation of abortion-focused accounts was not related to the change in speech policies. But the timing of the incidents raised questions about whether the company was really loosening speech restrictions, and was another example of its challenges in content enforcement.

A Meta spokesman attributed some of the recent incidents involving abortion pill-related posts and accounts to rules that prohibit the sale of pharmaceutical drugs on its platforms without proper certification. The company also described some of the incidents as “over-enforcement.”

Meta, which has previously suppressed posts from abortion providers, has said that it was making changes to its speech policies partly to reduce the number of posts that were erroneously taken down.

“We’ve been quite clear in recent weeks that we want to allow more speech and reduce enforcement mistakes,” Meta said in a statement.

Lisa Femia, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, “there’s been a massive uptick in social media platforms removing content related to reproductive health care and specifically abortion pills. This is an ongoing, increasing problem and a real threat to people receiving vital information and guidance about health care online.”

Aid Access, one of the largest abortion pill providers in the United States, said some posts were removed on its Facebook account and blurred out on its Instagram account since November, with more posts blurred in recent days. The abortion pill service said it has been blocked from accessing its Facebook account since November, and its Instagram account was suspended last week, though it has since been restored.

The Instagram accounts of other abortion pill providers, including Women Help Women and Just the Pill, were also suspended in recent days. The providers said the reason that Meta gave them for the suspensions was that their accounts did not “follow our Community Standards on guns, drugs and other restricted goods.” Both accounts were restored on Thursday.

The Instagram account of Hey Jane, another abortion pill provider, was recently invisible in Instagram search, said Rebecca Davis, who leads marketing at Hey Jane. Something similar happened in 2023 until Meta reversed it, she said.

“We know firsthand that this suppression actively prevents Hey Jane from reaching people who are seeking out timely health care information,” Ms. Davis said. “Given Meta’s recent promises around free speech, we’re incredibly disappointed to see how the platform is restricting our free speech.”

The Food and Drug Administration permits telehealth providers to prescribe online and deliver by mail the prescription drugs that cause an abortion, mifepristone and misoprostol. Twelve states have banned abortion and more have placed gestational limits or restrictions on mail-order pills. But providers in states where abortion is legal have been mailing pills to states with bans under shield laws meant to protect them.

Sheera Frenkel contributed reporting.

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