On Friday, October 23, 2026, Decrypt reported that police forces from 21 countries have arrested 1,462 suspects and recovered more than $105 million in a continent-wide cybercrime operation coordinated by Interpol.
The international police organization announced the results on Thursday. Dubbed Operation Serengeti III, the campaign ran from June 29 to August 31, 2026, and focused on ransomware, online scams, business email compromise, digital extortion, and other fraud enabled by technology.
Authorities disrupted 10,909 malicious networks and identified 65,929 victims. Financial investigations tied the networks to losses exceeding $385 million, Interpol said.
In Angola, investigators shut down two illegal cryptocurrency mining centers and detained nine people. Officers also seized more than 2,000 mining devices and six unauthorized power transformation stations. Interpol said the electrical equipment alone was valued at over $1 million.
Nigerian authorities arrested a suspect in connection with an international investment fraud scheme promoted through messaging applications. Investigators traced more than $2.4 million in suspected criminal proceeds, a large share of which was laundered through cryptocurrency transactions.
Another Nigerian suspect was detained on accusations of operating a phishing and business email compromise scheme that harvested roughly 2.1 million email addresses.
In Uganda, officials dismantled two transnational fraud rings and arrested 365 foreign nationals. The groups were linked to online investment and pension scams targeting victims in Asia. According to Interpol, they operated a rotating call center that relied on scripts, fake trading platforms and fraudulent websites to convince retirees to put money into investments that did not exist.
Thirty suspects were also arrested in connection with a cybercrime operation in the Republic of Congo.
Neal Jetton, Interpol’s director of cybercrime, said cybercrime networks disregard national borders and use technology to target victims on an unprecedented scale.
Private-sector partners including Group-IB, Kaspersky, blockchain analytics firm Uppsala Security and Meta supported the operation. Interpol said several investigations remain active as authorities work to identify additional suspects and trace illicit proceeds.
The operation follows Operation Catalyst, a joint Interpol-Afripol effort targeting terrorist financing and cybercrime. That 2025 crackdown led to 83 arrests across six African countries and flagged $260 million in illicit cryptocurrency and fiat currency, of which $600,000 was seized.
Source: Decrypt
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