# Temu Quietly Shut Down a $1 Billion Fake-Influencer Ad Network After Getting Caught > Researchers found roughly 73 of 100 Temu 'influencer' accounts on Meta were likely fake, running billions of ad impressions from accounts based in China, Russia, Bangladesh, and Iran. Days after the findings went public, most of the network stopped posting entirely. - Source: Continental - Canonical URL: https://continental.today/article/temu-fake-influencer-network-meta - Author: staff - Section: Business - Published: 2026-09-25T15:04:59.923Z - Updated: 2026-09-25T15:04:59.923Z - Tags: Temu, Meta, Ad Fraud --- In the days after Fortune published an August 31 investigation into Temu's advertising practices on Meta, the company quietly dismantled a large network of inauthentic influencer accounts it had been using to run partnership ads across Instagram and Facebook. The investigation, conducted by the Czech-based research group Online Risk Labs, examined 100 accounts running Temu partnership ads and found roughly 73 were likely fake. Across the network as a whole, researchers traced $1 billion in cumulative ad spend over sixteen months, ending in April 2026, generating nearly 17 billion impressions. At its peak, the network was running around 4,900 separate partnership campaigns a day. The markers researchers used to flag the fake accounts were fairly consistent: nonsensical usernames, account locations in China, Russia, Bangladesh, and Iran, frequent name changes, and unusually concentrated posting patterns, with some accounts running more than 225 campaigns in a single day. The most prolific account identified, going by the name "Ya Lilly," had run 278,000 Temu campaigns and had a combined following of 312,000 across the platforms it used. Once the findings became public, most of the network's activity stopped within days. By September 4, roughly 90 of the accounts researchers had been tracking showed zero active Temu ads, and 54 of the top 100 accounts had stopped running them immediately. Partnership ad volume tied to Temu fell by nearly half overall, and in several countries, including Ireland, Cyprus, Austria, Denmark, Latvia, and Slovenia, advertising through the network all but disappeared. Neither Temu nor Meta has commented publicly on the episode. Online Risk Labs noted that the flagged accounts have stopped posting new content and have removed location information from their profiles, changes that look more like an operation being wound down quietly than one being brought into compliance. --- Originally published by Continental. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://continental.today/article/temu-fake-influencer-network-meta.