Operation Red Card – 300+ Cyber Criminals Arrested Linking to Multiple Hacking Activities

INTERPOL led a multi-national law enforcement operation dubbed “Operation Red Card,” which has resulted in the arrest of over 300 suspected cyber criminals. 

Operation Red Card, conducted from November 2024 to February 2025, targeted cross-border criminal syndicates responsible for mobile banking fraud, investment scams, and messaging app exploitation.

The operation involved law enforcement agencies from seven African nations—Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Togo, and Zambia coordinated through INTERPOL’s African Joint Operation against Cybercrime (AFJOC). 

Authorities seized 1,842 devices containing evidence of malicious activities that victimized over 5,000 individuals across the continent.

Law Enforcement Takes Down African Cybercrime Networks

Kaspersky’s threat intelligence team provided crucial analysis of malicious Android applications targeting African users, including detailed YARA rules that helped identify specific malware families.

Operation highlights included the arrest of 130 individuals in Nigeria, including 113 foreign nationals orchestrating sophisticated investment scams who converted proceeds to digital assets to conceal their activities. 

In Zambia, authorities apprehended 14 members of a hacking syndicate that deployed malware through malicious links, gaining control of victims’ messaging accounts and banking applications through a multistage attack vector.

Rwandan police arrested 45 criminals who executed social engineering attacks resulting in losses exceeding $305,000 in 2024 alone. 

Their tactics included impersonating telecommunications employees and creating fake jackpot schemes to extract sensitive information from victims’ mobile banking accounts.

South African authorities dismantled a SIM box fraud operation, arresting 40 individuals and seizing over 1,000 SIM cards and 53 computer systems. 

This infrastructure facilitated the rerouting of international calls as local ones to enable large-scale SMS phishing campaigns.

Neal Jetton, INTERPOL’s Director of the Cybercrime Directorate, stated: “The success of Operation Red Card demonstrates the power of international cooperation in combating cybercrime, which knows no borders and can have devastating effects on individuals and communities.”

Yuliya Shlychkova, Vice President of Global Public Affairs at Kaspersky, added: “The evolving threat landscape in Africa requires multi-stakeholder dialogue and joint efforts of public and private organizations.” 

“Red Card showcases how private sector expertise coupled with law enforcement investigative capacities can foster a more cyber-resilient environment.”

This operation builds on Kaspersky’s previous collaborations with INTERPOL, including two editions of Africa Cyber Surge operations and recent joint action with AFRIPOL. 

The partnership continues to focus on sharing threat intelligence data feeds, IoCs, and APT information to combat cybercrime trends across the African continent.

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