Poland has formally asked the European Commission to fine Meta Platforms €250 million (~$291.3 million), accusing the company of failing to remove fraudulent ads from Facebook and Instagram even after being notified, Reuters reported. Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski announced the request at a press conference on August 27, citing tests conducted by CERT Polska, the country’s national cybersecurity incident response team.

CERT Polska identified 122 advertisements it classified as fraudulent and reported them to Meta. According to Gawkowski, Meta declined to remove 106 of them (86.8%). Only 10 ads came down, and six reports received no response at all.

“We have hard evidence that the platform isn’t acting in the best interests of users, but rather in its own self-interest, which allows it to monetize deceptive advertising,” Gawkowski said. “The time has passed for us to say ‘improve yourselves.’ They say ‘we are improving,’ but citizens still don’t feel it. Now the time has come for penalties.”

He is also pushing for a coordinated European response, saying he will use the upcoming G20 summit to press other European leaders to speak out jointly against Meta’s practices. “This should be a joint initiative that will demonstrate that we have strong arguments and are determined to curb Meta’s actions,” he said.

Meta said in a statement that it continues to invest in fighting fraud on its platforms. “Scammers are persistent criminals who use increasingly sophisticated tactics. That’s why we continue to invest heavily in technologies and partnerships, with industry and law enforcement, to find, remove, and ultimately stop scammers,” the company said.

A Wider Pattern

According to a Fortune report, Poland’s complaint lands alongside separate research suggesting the scale of the problem extends well beyond individual fraudulent ads. A report from Online Risk Labs, a Czech nonprofit that studies systemic risk online, found that of the top 100 creators whose posts Temu boosted through Meta’s partnership ad program across the UK and EU, 73 were likely fake accounts rather than real people, based on patterns like repeated handle changes and mismatched identity details. ORL estimated Temu spent as much as $962 million on partnership ads in the UK and 27 EU countries over 16 months, while the top 100 creator accounts generated a cumulative reach of 16.9 billion in the first four months of 2026. ORL has separately filed a report asking the EU’s Digital Services Act regulator to conduct a risk assessment of the practice.

Advertising lawyer Stuart Lester of Mishcon de Reya told Fortune that creating fake accounts to carry advertising is likely to violate misleading-advertising rules in the UK and EU.

The Polish request also follows a Warsaw appellate court ruling in April that held Meta responsible for advertisements hosted on its platforms, after Polish billionaire Rafal Brzoska sued the company in 2024 over fake ads that used his likeness. It arrived a day after Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle claims by U.S. states that it designed its platforms to addict children.

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