Nigerian police have emerged as a driving force in one of the continent’s largest crackdowns on online fraud, helping Interpol’s Operation Red Card 2.0 net 651 arrests and recover more than USD 4.3 million from sophisticated cybercrime syndicates.
The eight-week operation, which ran from 8 December 2025 to 30 January 2026, united law enforcement from 16 African nations — Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Chad, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe — to dismantle networks behind high-yield investment scams, mobile money fraud and fake loan apps.
Investigators linked the targeted groups to more than USD 45 million in losses suffered by 1,247 victims, most of them across Africa. Alongside the arrests, authorities seized 2,341 devices and took down 1,442 malicious IP addresses, domains and servers.
In Nigeria, the successes were particularly striking. Local police dismantled a high-yield investment fraud ring that preyed on young recruits, using phishing, identity theft, social engineering and fake digital asset schemes to dupe victims. Officers took down more than 1,000 fraudulent social media accounts and seized a luxurious residential property built by the ringleader, which had served as the gang’s operational nerve centre.
In a separate breakthrough, six members of another sophisticated syndicate were arrested for hacking into the internal platform of a major Nigerian telecommunications provider. Using stolen staff credentials, the group siphoned airtime and data bundles before reselling them on the black market, depriving the company and its customers of millions in revenue.
The coordinated effort was supported by INTERPOL’s intelligence-sharing platform and training in digital forensics, under the umbrella of the African Joint Operation against Cybercrime (AFJOC), with funding from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the EU-Council of Europe GLACY-e project. Private-sector partners including the Cybercrime Atlas, Team Cymru, Trend Micro, TRM Labs and Uppsala Security supplied critical threat data.
Neal Jetton, INTERPOL’s Director of the Cybercrime Directorate, praised the cross-border teamwork. “These organized cybercriminal syndicates inflict devastating financial and psychological harm on individuals, businesses and entire communities with their false promises,” he said. “Operation Red Card highlights the importance of collaboration when combatting transnational cybercrime. I encourage all victims of cybercrime to reach out to law enforcement for help.”
With results announced this week, Nigerian authorities say the operation marks a significant escalation in the fight against “Yahoo boys” and their evolving tactics. Officials across the region are already reviewing intelligence gathered during Red Card 2.0, signalling that further arrests and asset recoveries could follow in the coming months.
