Law enforcement authorities in 14 African countries have arrested 260 suspects and seized 1,235 electronic devices in a co-ordinated international operation against cybercrime, Interpol said on Friday.
The crackdown targeted transnational criminal networks exploiting digital platforms, particularly social media, to manipulate victims and defraud them financially. Specifically, the operation focused on romance scams, where perpetrators build online relationships to extract money from victims, and sextortion, in which victims are blackmailed with explicit images or videos, the agency said.
Dubbed Operation Contender 3.0, police identified IP addresses, digital infrastructures, domains and social media profiles linked to members of the scam syndicates. These leads and the arrests resulted in the seizure of USB drives, SIM cards and forged documents, as well as the take down of 81 cybercrime infrastructures in Africa.