DAKAR, Senegal — Interpol has arrested 1,006 suspects in Africa during a two-month operation clamping down on cybercrime that left tens of thousands of victims, including some who were trafficked, and produced millions of dollars in financial damages, the global police organization said Tuesday.
Operation Serengeti, a joint operation with Afripol, the African Union’s police agency, ran from Sept. 2 to Oct. 31 in 19 African countries and targeted criminals believed to be behind ransomware, business email compromise, digital extortion and online scams, the agency said in a statement.
“From multi-level marketing scams to credit card fraud on an industrial scale, the increasing volume and sophistication of cybercrime attacks is of serious concern,” said Valdecy Urquiza, the secretary general of Interpol.
Interpol siad it had pinpointed 35,000 victims, with cases linked to nearly $193 million in financial losses worldwide, stating that local police authorities and private sector partners, including internet service providers, played a key role in the operation.
“Through Serengeti, Afripol has significantly enhanced support for law enforcement in African Union Member States,” Jalel Chelba, Afripol’s executive director, said in the statement.
In Kenya, the police made nearly two dozen arrests in an online credit card fraud case linked to losses of $8.6 million. In the West African country of Senegal, officers arrested eight people, including five Chinese nationals, accused of operating a $6 million online Ponzi scheme.
Mr. Chelba said Afripol’s focus now includes emerging threats like artificial intelligence-driven malware and advanced cyberattack techniques.
Other dismantled networks included a group in Cameroon suspected of using a multi-level marketing scam for human trafficking, an international criminal group in Angola running an illegal virtual casino and a cryptocurrency investment scam in Nigeria, the agency said.
Interpol, which has 196 member countries and celebrated its centennial last year, works to help national police forces communicate with each other and track suspects and criminals in fields like counterterrorism, financial crime, child pornography, cybercrime and organized crime.
The world’s biggest — if not best-funded — police organization has been grappling with new challenges including a growing caseload of cybercrime and child sex abuse, and increasing divisions among its member countries.
Interpol had a total budget of about $188 million last year, compared to more than $209 million at the European Union’s police agency, Europol, and some $11 billion at the FBI in the United States.
Separately, U.S. law enforcement officials said a suspect wanted in the U.S. for two bombings in the San Francisco area had been captured in Britain following a 20-year run from the law.
Daniel Andreas San Diego, 46, one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives, was arrested Monday in a rural area in northern Wales, the National Crime Agency said. He was ordered held in custody after the court appearance in London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court and faces extradition.
Mr. San Diego is charged in the U.S. with planting two bombs that exploded about an hour apart on Aug. 28, 2003, on the campus of a biotechnology company in Emeryville, California. He’s also accused of setting off another bomb at a nutritional products company in Pleasanton, California, a month later.
The bombings didn’t injure anyone, but authorities said the biotechnology bomb was intended to harm first responders.
A group called Revolutionary Cells-Animal Liberation Brigade claimed responsibility for the bombings, citing the companies’ ties to Huntingdon Life Sciences. Huntingdon was a target of animal rights extremists because of its work with experimental drugs and chemicals on animals while under contract for pharmaceutical, cosmetic and other companies.
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