Interpol Clamps Down on Cybercrime and Arrests Over 1,000 Suspects in Africa

Interpol arrested 1,006 suspects in Africa during a massive two-month operation, clamping down on cybercrime that left tens of thousands of victims, including some who were trafficked, and produced millions in financial damages, the global police organization said Tuesday. From a report: 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 behind ransomware, business email compromise, digital extortion and online scams, the agency said in a statement.

Only 1,006?

[namgge]

1,006? That's not much more than the ones who've tried to con me...

Re:

[OffTheLip]

Should be 1024 since this is cyber-crime. If one is going to arbitrarily go after some number it should at least some sense.

Interpol cannot arrest anyone

[JoshuaZ]

Interpol cannot arrest anyone https://rednoticelawyers.com/blog/can-interpol-make-arrests/ [rednoticelawyers.com]. These arrests occurred by local police in coordination with Interpol. In fairness to Slashdot, the article the summary is based on also gets this wrong.

Re:

[VaccinesCauseAdults]

Fair enough. Pedantically true, I guess. Similarly: people don’t kill people, guns kill people.

No they didn't

[ironicsky]

Interpol is not a police agency. They have no jurisdiction or law enforcement capabilities. They are a broker of collaboration and data sharing between police agencies.

Interpol likely provided information to the South African Government, which allowed them to make the arrests.