More than 1,200 people were arrested in a major cybercrime crackdown in Africa, the international police organization Interpol announced on Friday.
Investigators from 18 African countries and the United Kingdom identified some 88,000 victims of fraud and illegal cryptocurrency networks, Interpol said in a statement.
Cybercrime now accounts for more than 30% of all reported crime in West and East Africa, according to the statement.
What else do we know about Interpol’s cybercrime crackdown?
The operation, dubbed “Serengeti 2.0,” took place between June and August. It led to the arrest of 1,209 suspected cybercriminals, recovered $97.4 million (€83.2 million), and took down 11,432 malicious infrastructures.
In one bust, authorities in Angola dismantled 25 cryptocurrency mining centers, where Chinese operators had been mining cryptocurrency.
Angolan officials seized equipment worth an estimated $37 million, “now earmarked by the government to support power distribution in vulnerable areas,” according to Interpol.
In the Ivory Coast, Interpol also said it dismantled a transnational inheritance scam — described as “one of the oldest internet frauds.” Scammers tricked victims into paying fees to claim fake inheritances, causing about $1.6 million in losses.
And in Zambia, investigators targeted a network responsible for an online investment scam that defrauded more than 65,000 victims of an estimated $300 million.
Edited by: Darko Janjevic
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