"African Police Bust $800K Fraud Schemes"

Interpol stated that police in Africa recently arrested ten people connected to global fraud worth an estimated $800,000 after a four-month operation.  The global policing organization noted that 27 countries joined the Africa Cyber Surge Operation, which ran from July to November.  Interpol stated that it was coordinated from the Interpol Command Center in Kigali, Rwanda.  The operation focused on tackling the enablers of cybercrime.  Police took action against 200,000 pieces of "malicious cyber infrastructure" across the region, including botnet-linked technology used to run mass phishing, spam, and online extortion campaigns.  In Tanzania, police recovered over $150,000 of victims' money from data infringement and copyright cases, while in Eritrea, they dismantled a darknet market selling cybercrime-as-a-service components.  Interpol noted that in Cameroon, police disrupted multiple cryptocurrency scams, including one that cost a victim over $12,600.  Alongside the ten individuals arrested in connection with fraud, an eleventh was arrested on suspicion of committing child abuse offenses.  Interpol noted that collaboration was critical to the success of the Africa Cyber Surge Operation.  "Interpol worked with its local equivalent, Afripol; private sector security vendors including Trend Micro, Fortinet, Group-IB, and Kaspersky; local ISPs and Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs); hosting providers; and other players like the non-profit Shadowserver Foundation." According to Interpol, 18 of the participating countries have CERTs, and, crucially, police have now put in place agreements to formalize response work for the future.  Many countries participated for the first time in such an operation.  

Infosecurity reports: "African Police Bust $800K Fraud Schemes"