African regulation enforcement authorities have arrested 306 suspects as a part of ‘Operation Crimson Card,’ an INTERPOL-led worldwide crackdown concentrating on cross-border cybercriminal networks.
Between November 2024 and February 2025, authorities seized 1,842 gadgets allegedly utilized in cell banking, funding, and messaging app scams linked to over 5,000 victims.
“Forward of the operation, international locations exchanged prison intelligence on key targets. This intelligence was enriched by INTERPOL with insights into prison modus operandi utilizing knowledge from its personal sector companions—Group-IB, Kaspersky and Pattern Micro,” the worldwide police group stated.
“The seven taking part international locations have been Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Togo and Zambia.”
Nigerian police not too long ago detained 130 people (together with 113 international nationals) linked to funding fraud and on-line on line casino scams. They hid their illicit earnings in digital belongings and have been recruited from varied international locations, working in a number of languages. Some staff in these rip-off facilities may additionally be human trafficking victims.
Zambian police additionally apprehended 14 suspects, a part of a cybercrime gang that was allegedly hacking into victims’ telephones through malicious hyperlinks that put in malware. This allowed them to regulate messaging accounts and entry banking apps, spreading scams by way of victims’ messaging apps.
In South Africa, cops arrested 40 people and confiscated over 53 computer systems and over 1,000 SIM playing cards utilized in a SIM field fraud operation that rerouted worldwide calls as native ones, facilitating large-scale SMS phishing assaults.
Rwandan authorities additionally detained one other 45 people linked to a community concerned in social engineering scams, who defrauded victims of over USD 305,000 in 2024. Their methods included impersonating telecom employees and pretending to be injured family members searching for monetary assist.
“The success of Operation Crimson Card demonstrates the ability of worldwide cooperation in combating cybercrime, which is aware of no borders and might have devastating results on people and communities,” stated Neal Jetton, INTERPOL’s Director of the Cybercrime Directorate.
“The restoration of great belongings and gadgets, in addition to the arrest of key suspects, sends a robust message to cybercriminals that their actions won’t go unpunished.”
That is the newest INTERPOL-led operation concentrating on cybercrime in Africa in recent times, with multi-million operations both disrupted or dismantled after earlier joint actions.
Between September 2nd and October thirty first, one other regulation enforcement motion coordinated by Interpol and dubbed ‘Operation Serengeti‘ led to the arrest of 1,006 suspects believed to be a part of cybercrime hyperlinks behind ransomware, digital extortion, enterprise e-mail compromise (BEC), and on-line scams.
As a part of ‘Operation Africa Cyber Surge II,’ launched in April 2023, regulation enforcement businesses from 25 African international locations additionally disrupted over 20,000 cybercrime networks concerned in extortion, phishing, BEC, and on-line scams, accountable for losses of over $40,000,000.
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