Interpol says Serengeti III netted 1,462 arrests

Interpol said Operation Serengeti III ran from 29 June to 31 August and focused on business email compromise, ransomware and online scams. It said authorities from 21 countries took part, with private partners including Team Cymru, Kaspersky, Group-IB and Fortinet.

In its press release, Interpol said the operation produced 1,462 suspected arrests and the dismantling of 10,909 malicious networks. It also said investigators identified 65,929 victims and assessed losses at more than $385 million, while more than $105 million in illegal funds were recovered.

The agency said police in Uganda broke up two transnational fraud rings and arrested 365 people suspected of involvement in online investment and pension fraud. In Angola, nine suspects were arrested and more than 2,000 cryptocurrency mining devices were seized.

Interpol also said one person was arrested in Nigeria over allegations of running a phishing and business email compromise operation that collected software credentials and about 2.1 million email addresses. The agency said the operation also affected malicious mobile lending applications, fraudulent vehicle imports and cryptocurrency investment scams.

Team Cymru said it helped by supplying intelligence and technical detail on suspicious domains, IP addresses and command-and-control infrastructure. Jacomo Piccolini said that visibility at internet scale gave defenders a different starting point for exposing criminal networks.