Australia's richest man sues Facebook over cryptocurrency fraudulent ads

Australian iron ore tycoon Andrew Forrest announced on Thursday that he will file criminal charges in an Australian court against Facebook, the social media platform owned by Meta Platform, alleging the platform violated anti-money laundering laws and was used to defraud Australian.

Forrest is Australia's richest man and chairman of mining giant Fortescue Metals Group. He said he took the action to stop people from losing money to clickbait ad scams, such as when his imagery was used to promote cryptocurrency scams.

Forrest filed the lawsuit in the District Court of Western Australia, alleging Facebook "failed to establish a control mechanism or corporate culture to prevent its systems from being used for crime."

The indictment also alleges that Facebook did not do enough to prevent criminals from using its platform to send scam ads to deceive Australian users, a crime.

Prior to the lawsuit, Forrest said he had repeatedly petitioned Facebook to prevent his image from being used to promote investment plans, including in an open letter to the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November 2019 .

Facebook declined to comment on the lawsuit, other than to say that the company routinely takes "multiple measures" to prevent such ads from appearing and to block advertisers.

Forrest's lawsuit alleges that since March 2019, ads have appeared on Facebook using Forrest's image purporting to promote a cryptocurrency investment scheme.

"This action is on behalf of ordinary Australians - mums, dads, grandparents - who have worked their whole lives to save their savings and make sure they don't get stolen by scammers," Forrest said in a statement. "

If found guilty, Facebook faces fines of up to A$126,000 ($90,000) on each of the three charges.

Forrest said a preliminary hearing in the case will be held on March 28.

Last September, Forrest filed another civil lawsuit against Facebook in San Mateo County Superior Court in California.