Mass arrests for sextortion and romance scams in sting operation across Africa

BBC:

Some 260 suspected cyber scammers have been arrested in a sting operation carried out across 14 African countries.

The operation, co-ordinated by Interpol and funded by the UK, targeted criminal networks using social media and digital platforms to extract money from victims in romance scams, and in so-called “sextortion”, in which victims are blackmailed using explicit imagery.

“It doesn’t take long before you develop a connection with somebody… and very quickly this trust is shattered,” Interpol’s director of cybercrime Neal Jetton told the BBC’s Newsday programme, describing the perpetrators’ tactics.

More than 1,400 victims across Ghana, Kenya, Angola and elsewhere were identified.

Interpol estimates the victims lost a combined total of almost $2.8m (£2.1m).

People of various different ages fell foul of the scammers, Jetton added, but “typically a lot these scams do affect older people”.

During the crackdown which was carried out between July and August, police identified IP addresses, digital infrastructure, domains and social media profiles linked to members of the scam syndicates.

These leads and the subsequent arrests also resulted in the seizure of USB drives, Sim cards and forged documents, as well as the taking-down of 81 cyber-crime groups across Africa, Interpol said.

The global police network said it was committed to “disrupting and dismantling the groups that prey on vulnerable individuals online”.