Major operation in Africa targeting online scams nets 651 arrests, recovers $4.3 million

Law enforcement agencies from 16 African countries have made 651 arrests and recovered more than USD 4.3 million in an international cybercrime operation against online scams.

Operation Red Card 2.0 (8 December 2025 to 30 January 2026) targeted the infrastructure and actors behind high-yield investment scams, mobile money fraud and fraudulent mobile loan applications.

During the eight-week operation, investigations exposed scams linked to over USD 45 million in financial losses and identified 1,247 victims, predominantly from the African continent but also from other regions of the world.  Authorities also seized 2,341 devices and took down 1,442 malicious IPs, domains and servers, as well as other related infrastructure.

Read more at INTERPOL