Google accused the two app creators, who are based in China and Hong Kong, of misleading over 100,000 users into downloading 87 fake apps since 2019. According to estimates from Google, each victim lost anywhere from $100 to tens of thousands of dollars.

These apps were a particular kind of romantic scam, similar to pig-butchering, in which the victim is tricked by a sophisticated network of con artists. Through romance scam texts or YouTube videos, the con artists would lure their victims in, and after striking up a discussion, they would convince them to download the apps, which were staged to look authentic on the Play Store.

Fraudsters would get users to invest on investing apps in the hopes of making money; they would even allow them to take out tiny amounts of money at a time. After a short while, though, the user would be required to pay a charge in order to withdraw any money from the app.

As per Google's statement, they lost more than $75,000 while looking into the scam, but they were the first corporation to take action against these kinds of con artists.