300 arrests made in crackdown of West African cyber fraud group
An international law enforcement operation targeting the sprawling West African organized crime and cyber fraud ecosystem led to 300 arrests, $3 million in assets seized and 720 blocked bank accounts, Interpol said Wednesday.
The arrests — made across five continents — came as part of Operation Jackal III, Interpol said in a statement, which ran from April 10 to July 3.
“The volume of financial fraud stemming from West Africa is alarming and increasing,” Isaac Oginni, the director of Interpol’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre, said in a statement. “This operation’s results underscore the critical need for international law enforcement collaboration to combat these extensive criminal networks.”
“By identifying suspects, recovering illicit funds and putting some of West Africa’s most dangerous organized crime leaders behind bars, we are able to weaken their influence and reduce their capacity to harm communities around the world,” he added.
The operation targeted “Black Axe,” a Nigerian “violent mafia-style gang” that’s been operating for decades and conducting all manner of criminal activities, according to a December 2021 BBC report that examined hacked documents linked to the group. Interpol’s statement Wednesday described the group as “one of the most prominent West African transnational organized crime syndicates,” and said it engaged in cyber fraud, human trafficking, drug smuggling and violent crimes within Africa and globally.
The network of criminals used bank accounts around the world to facilitate fraud, Interpol said, with ongoing investigations in 40 countries looking into suspected related money laundering activity.
U.S. officials in 2021 arrested 33 people in Texas linked to the network and accused of business email compromise, investor scams and unemployment insurance fraud, The Record reported at the time. Suspects in that case were accused of stealing and laundering more than $17 million from at least 100 victims.
Business email compromise, also known as BEC, is one of the most “financially damaging” forms of internet-enabled crimes, according to the FBI. International BEC-related losses between June 2016 and December 2021 totalled $43 billion, the bureau said in a May 2022 public service announcement.
