Law enforcement agencies snared several West African crime syndicates as part of an ongoing series of investigations taking aim at fraud and cybercrime.
Interpol today announced preliminary results of Jackal IV, a coordinated international operation targeting organized crime groups in West Africa, with a particular focus on fraud and cybercrime. Law enforcement from 22 countries across six continents worked together to arrest 58 suspects and identify 263 more.
Global law enforcement has been targeting African cybercrime in these Jackal operations for years. Jackal III, which concluded in 2024, led to hundreds of arrests and approximately $3 million in seized assets. The first two Jackal operations in 2022 and 2023 led to approximately 200 arrests in total and millions of dollars more in seized assets.
While multiple organizations have been targeted in these operations, authorities behind Jackal took particular interest in Black Axe, a transnational organized crime network of Nigerian-origin that has been linked to business email compromise, romance scams, cryptocurrency and investment fraud, money laundering, and other cyber-enabled financial crimes.
Interpol said in a press release that Black Axe and similar West African groups "are responsible for a significant share of the world's cyber-enabled financial fraud."