INTERPOL Secretary-General Valdecy Urquiza welcomed the establishment of the International Alliance Combating Telecom and Cyber Fraud
Speaking at the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, which ran from 8 to 10 September 2026, INTERPOL Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza has highlighted the trans‑national nature of major crimes and described China as a ‘strong supporter and partner of INTERPOL’ in the fight against fraud, called for stronger multilateral cooperation as fraud, cybercrime and other forms of trans‑national crime grow in scale and complexity.
In this regard, he has welcomed the launch of the International Alliance Combating Telecom and Cyber Fraud, describing the initiative as an important step in strengthening international cooperation against one of the fastest-growing forms of transnational organised crime.
The creation of the alliance reflects the growing scale and internationalisation of fraud operations. Telecom and cyber fraud increasingly rely on criminal infrastructures that operate across multiple jurisdictions, combining social engineering, identity theft, phishing, online impersonation, cryptocurrency, money laundering and the abuse of telecommunications and digital platforms. Victims, perpetrators, financial intermediaries, telecommunications infrastructure and digital services may all be located in different countries, making investigations dependent on rapid information exchange and coordinated operational responses.
The initiative builds on a wider evolution in international law-enforcement cooperation against fraud. China has been an important supporter of INTERPOL’s Operation First Light. According to Secretary General Urquiza, cooperation between INTERPOL and China under Operation First Light, a global initiative targeting social-engineering scams and associated money laundering, that involved 97 countries and territories, has contributed to more than 5,800 arrests, the identification of over 15,600 suspects, the blocking of more than 31,000 bank accounts and the interception of approximately USD 293 million in illicit assets. The operation also identified more than 142,000 victims, illustrating the scale of the global fraud ecosystem.
The establishment of the alliance also takes place against a rapidly evolving threat environment. INTERPOL’s 2026 Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment describes financial fraud as increasingly central to transnational organised crime and closely connected to cybercrime, human trafficking, money laundering and other forms of illicit activity. INTERPOL, observing the transformation that AI allows in the filed of financial fraud, has warned that AI-enabled fraud can increase the profitability and scalability of criminal operations by supporting impersonation, deepfake production, automated victim targeting and the generation of convincing fraudulent communications.
Against this background, the new alliance provides an additional mechanism for coordinating investigations, sharing intelligence, building national capacities and disrupting the infrastructure supporting fraud networks. Such cooperation is particularly important because effective responses increasingly require collaboration beyond traditional police-to-police channels. Telecommunications operators, banks, cryptocurrency platforms, technology companies and cybersecurity organisations may possess information or technical capabilities necessary to identify fraudulent numbers, domains, accounts, wallets and financial flows.
Why does it matter ?
This initiative reflects a broader shift towards multistakeholder and infrastructure-based approaches to combating cyber-enabled crime. Rather than focusing exclusively on individual perpetrators after a fraud has occurred, law-enforcement strategies increasingly seek to identify and disrupt the wider systems that enable criminal operations, including telecommunications infrastructure, financial channels, digital identities and online platforms. INTERPOL’s use of tools such as its Global Rapid Intervention of Payments mechanism similarly illustrates the importance of rapid intervention before illicit funds can be moved across jurisdictions or converted into harder-to-trace assets.
This new alliance is therefore relevant as an indicator of the institutionalisation of international responses to cyber-enabled fraud and of the growing need to connect cybercrime policy with telecommunications governance, digital identity, financial regulation, human trafficking and AI governance. Its future development will be worth monitoring to assess whether the alliance becomes a significant operational mechanism or adds another layer to an already fragmented landscape of international cybercrime and anti-fraud cooperation.
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