1,462 Arrests, 10,909 Networks Taken Down, $105 Million Recovered: Interpol’s Serengeti III Crackdown, at a Glance

Online fraud rarely respects borders: the scam that reaches a business inbox may be planned, staffed and laundered thousands of miles away. On Thursday, Interpol announced the results of one of the largest efforts yet to push back on it in Africa: a two-month operation called Serengeti III.

The figures below come from BleepingComputer’s coverage and Interpol’s announcement.

The operation at a glance

When: June 29 to August 31, 2026, announced October 22
Who: law enforcement from 21 countries, coordinated by Interpol, with private-sector partners including Team Cymru, Kaspersky, Group-IB and Fortinet
Targets: cyber-enabled fraud, ransomware, business email compromise (BEC), online scams and digital extortion
Arrests: 1,462 suspects
Infrastructure disrupted: 10,909 malicious networks
Money recovered: more than $105 million
Victims identified: 65,929
Losses linked to the activity: more than $385 million

Before the operation, according to Interpol, investigators in 20 African countries and in the United States received intelligence on suspicious domains, IP addresses and the command-and-control servers behind the criminal activity.

The case files that stand out

Nigeria: a phishing and BEC operation

Police arrested a suspect accused of running a large phishing and business email compromise scheme that harvested software credentials and built up a list of about 2.1 million email addresses. A luxury vehicle believed to have been bought with the proceeds was recovered. In a separate Nigerian case, an investment fraud promoted through messaging apps moved more than $2.4 million in suspected proceeds, much of it laundered through cryptocurrency.

Uganda: call centers built for fraud

Authorities broke up two transnational fraud rings and arrested 365 foreign nationals tied to investment and pension scams aimed at victims in Asia. Interpol describes a rotating call-center model built on scripts, fake trading platforms and fraudulent websites.

Angola: stolen power for crypto mining

Investigators shut down two illegal cryptocurrency mining centers, arresting nine people and seizing more than 2,000 mining machines plus six illegal power transformation stations. Interpol values the seized electrical equipment alone at more than $1 million.

And elsewhere

The operation also hit a malicious mobile loan app scheme in Tanzania, along with fraudulent vehicle imports and cryptocurrency investment scams.

The track record so far

Serengeti (September to October 2024, 19 countries): 1,006 arrests, 134,089 malicious infrastructures and networks taken down, about $44 million recovered
Serengeti 2.0 (June to August 2025): 1,209 arrests, 11,432 malicious infrastructures dismantled, $97.4 million seized
Serengeti III (June to August 2026, 21 countries): 1,462 arrests, 10,909 networks disrupted, more than $105 million recovered

Interpol paired the announcement with its African Cyber Threat Assessment Report 2026, which says artificial intelligence is increasingly enabling cybercrime on the continent and cyber-enabled financial losses keep rising. Interpol’s cybercrime director, Neal Jetton, said international cooperation remains one of the most effective tools against networks that ignore borders.

What this means for your company

Arrests help, but $105 million recovered against more than $385 million in losses shows that most stolen money never comes back. Prevention still has to happen at your end. Business email compromise, one of the operation’s main targets, works by getting an employee to change a payment destination or send a wire based on an email alone. The defenses are mostly process: verify every new or changed bank detail with a phone call to a number you already have on file, require two people to approve payments above a set amount, and turn on multifactor authentication for every mailbox so a stolen password is not enough. If a fraudulent transfer does go out, call your bank right away and file a report with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Speed matters for getting money back.

Need help tightening email security and payment verification so a single convincing message cannot redirect your company’s money? Reach out to Layer 7 Data Solutions to discuss how we’ve helped companies similar to yours.