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.

Re:

[byronivs]

No, they gave 'em the clamps, see?

but did they find Nigerian king/prince?

[kiviQr]

I keep sending checks and no reward so far ;-)

How about arresting ...

[Alain Williams]

The thousands of managers & solicitors who work for first world companies - who deceive their customers, over charge them, abuse their data -- by using incomprehensible terms & conditions and web sites that make it hard to opt out of what the company wants to keep you signed up to. Also many other similar things -- you get the idea.

Why not India

[ceg97]

Is there an element of racism here; going after Africans when Indian scammers ae more prevalent in my opinion.

Re:

[Targon]

It requires that local law enforcement will be willing to get involved. In the same way that Bin Laden was being somewhat protected by elements within Pakistan, I am sure that all those scammers in India are being protected by at least some elements of the law enforcement in India.

I'll be more impressed

[groobly]

I'll be more impressed when the arrest count reaches 1 million.