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Altogether, the scams targeted nearly 88,000 victims, the international police organization said in a statement. From cryptocurrency mining to online scams
A major cybercrime crackdown coordinated by Interpol has led to the arrest of 1,209 suspects across Africa and the recovery of nearly USD 97.4 million, the organization announced Friday.
Dubbed Operation Serengeti 2.0, the operation took place between June and August. It brought together investigators from 18 African countries and the United Kingdom to fight harmful cybercrimes, including inheritance scams, ransomware, and business email compromise.
Altogether, the scams targeted nearly 88,000 victims, the international police organization said in a statement. From cryptocurrency mining to online scams.Interpol said that authorities in Angola dismantled 25 cryptocurrency mining centers where 60 Chinese nationals had been mining cryptocurrency. The operation resulted in the confiscation of equipment worth over USD 37 million; the government now plans to use the equipment to support power distribution in vulnerable areas. In Zambia, the operation dismantled an online investment scheme that defrauded more than 65,000 victims of an estimated USD 300 million through a fraudulent high-return cryptocurrency scam.
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In locating the scam center in Zambia, authorities also disrupted a suspected human trafficking network, Interpol said. Interpol also said it dismantled a transnational inheritance scam in the Ivory Coast, which had originated in Germany. Victims of that scam were tricked into paying fees to claim fake inheritances, causing US$1.6 million in losses. Last year, in the first Operation Serengeti, Interpol arrested over 1,000 people in operations that had targeted 35,000 victims.