In a wide-scale crackdown, Interpol arrested 14 suspects and identified more than 20,000 suspicious networks linked to over $40 million in damages.

With the support of Afropol and European and UK funding, Interpol has launched a major campaign against cybercrime in Africa. The coordinated action took place in 25 African countries and resulted in fourteen arrests. Interpol also claims to have identified 20,674 suspected cyber networks. The criminals attacked are said to have already caused damage of more than 40 billion US dollars to the victims.

The action was carried out with the support of private cyber security specialists. Among others, Trend Micro, Kaspersky and Group-IB, but also the crypto exchange Coinbase, shared information with Interpol about Command & Control servers, fraudulent IPs, abused domain names, URLs and botnets.

Exhausting week

Last week, Interpol also conducted a targeted operation in Africa and the EU against the Black Ax digital crime syndicate. More than a hundred people were subsequently arrested and 2.15 million euros were seized from 208 bank accounts.

Interpol, together with local partners, is strongly committed to fighting cybercrime and as a unit is ideally suited for this. Criminals are seldom in a country and usually not at all in the countries in which they are victims. Coordinated international action like this helps curb crime and eliminate feelings of total impunity.