INTERPOL led operation arrests 14 cybercriminals

An INTERPOL led international law enforcement operation codenamed ‘Africa Cyber Surge II’ arrested 14 suspected cybercriminals. Some of the key highlights of the operation include: 3 suspects arrested in Cameroon for $850,000 online art scam; 1 person arrested in Nigeria for defrauding a Gambian victim; 2 money mules arrested in Mauritius for alleged links to messaging platform scams, 185 malicious IPs taken down in Gambia,2 darknet sites shut down in Cameroon and 615 malware hosters taken down in Kenya,

Launched in April 2023, this four month operation spanned 25 African countries and is reported to have disrupted over 20,000 cybercrime networks involved in extortion, phishing, BEC, and online scams, and responsible for financial losses of over $40,000,000.

The findings of investigations conducted by INTERPOL and partners served as guidance for ‘Africa Cyber Surge II’. These include information of: 3,786 malicious command and control servers; 14,134 victim IPs linked to data stealer cases; 1,415 phishing links and domains; 939 scam IPs; and over 400 other malicious URLs, IPs, and botnets

Group-IB, one of INTERPOL’s intelligence collecting partners for cybercrime originating from Africa shared that they had provided over a thousand indicators related to malicious infrastructure in the continent, adding “The data contained domains, URLs, and server IP addresses used in phishing and malware attacks. INTERPOL member countries in Africa leveraged this information in several takedown operations.”