Interpol's Africa Cyber Sweep Nets 1,462 Arrests and $105 Million Recovered

Serengeti III Nets 1,462 Arrests

An Africa-wide cybercrime sweep coordinated by Interpol closed with 1,462 suspects in custody and more than $105 million in illicit funds recovered, per the results the agency published on October 22. The push, run under the name Operation Serengeti III, ran from June 29 to August 31 and brought together law enforcement from 20 African countries and the United States. Its target list spanned online fraud, digital extortion, ransomware and business email compromise. Ransomware locks a victim's data and demands payment for its release; business email compromise relies on deceptive commercial messages to redirect corporate payments.

Financial investigators put losses tied to the recorded cases at over $385 million, a figure the agency keeps separate from the recovered total. The sweep identified 65,929 targeted victims and dismantled 10,909 malicious networks, the infrastructure clusters that host phishing pages, fraud platforms and malware delivery systems. Interpol's cybercrime director, Neal Jetton, said in the announcement that cybercrime groups pay no heed to borders, using technology to reach victims on a scale never seen before. Support on the private-sector side came from cybersecurity firm Group-IB, which passed investigators intelligence on malicious infrastructure, networks of compromised devices and social media accounts tied to suspected fraudsters.

The case list attached to the announcement is broad. Tanzanian authorities ran a dedicated action against malicious mobile loan applications, Gabon targeted vehicle import fraud, and authorities in the Republic of the Congo made 30 arrests. The agency did not publish a country-by-country breakdown of the arrests, and officials confirmed several investigations remain open, with teams tracing proceeds, hunting additional suspects and analyzing seized digital evidence.

Nigeria Scam Funds Traced Through Crypto

The cryptocurrency thread runs through several of the case files. In Nigeria, investigators following an international investment scheme promoted through messenger applications traced more than $2.4 million in suspected criminal proceeds and arrested one suspect. Interpol said a substantial share of that money was laundered through cryptocurrency transactions, moving between crypto wallets before conversion. A separate Nigerian probe involving phishing and business email compromise produced another arrest: that suspect stole software credentials and harvested roughly 2.1 million email addresses, and investigators seized a luxury car believed to have been purchased with the proceeds.

Uganda accounted for the largest single takedown inside the operation. Authorities there dismantled two cross-border fraud rings and detained 365 foreign nationals. The groups worked from prewritten phone scripts and ran fake trading platforms and fraudulent websites to push victims, many of them retirees, into projects that did not exist. Their targets sat across Asia, and the pitch materials were built to convert retirement savings into exit liquidity for the operators. Platforms of this kind typically display fabricated balances, with no live market or smart contract execution behind the numbers.

Angola produced the operation's mining enforcement. Investigators raided two illegal mining hubs, arrested nine suspects and seized more than 2,000 mining devices along with six illegal substations, the electrical facilities used to condition voltage for distribution, valued at over $1 million on their own. Angola's restriction on mining predates this sweep: the national assembly approved controls in December 2023, citing energy security, environmental concerns and monetary sovereignty, and the ban took effect in 2024. In the prior Serengeti 2.0 operation in 2025, authorities dismantled 25 mining centers in the country and seized 45 illegal power stations plus equipment valued above $37 million.

What the Recovery Figures Leave Out

Our reading of the file: crypto appears in two distinct roles here, as the laundering rail in the Nigerian investment fraud and as the power drain behind Angola's illegal mining sector. What the disclosures do not settle is scale. Neither announcement specifies whether the laundered funds moved in Bitcoin, stablecoins or other tokens, and the crypto share of the $105 million recovered is not broken out. The open cases point to more asset-specific detail ahead, and the pressure is sustained: Interpol has run parallel work in the region, including the fourth Jackal operation, which produced 58 arrests against West African organized crime networks. For retail investors, the Uganda files are the practical warning, since scripted pitches and fake dashboards remain the standard kit, which makes venue diligence of the kind captured in our Best Crypto Exchanges guide cheaper insurance than recovery litigation.