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INTERPOL says Operation HAECHI IV led to almost 3,500 arrests and the seizure of USD 300 million in assets across 34 countries. The six-month international operation ran from July through December 2023 and targeted a range of online fraud and related financial crimes.
What Operation HAECHI IV uncovered
In its 19 December 2023 release, INTERPOL described the results as operational outcomes from a coordinated effort against transnational online crime. Authorities blocked 82,112 suspicious bank accounts. The reported seizures included two types of assets:
| Asset type | Amount seized |
|---|---|
| Hard currency | USD 199 million |
| Virtual assets | USD 101 million |
| Total | USD 300 million |
The total was reported as approximately EUR 273 million. INTERPOL did not provide a complete victim-loss total, a country-by-country arrest breakdown or a conviction count. An arrest is not a conviction, and the reported seizure figure does not establish that all assets were ultimately forfeited.
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The operation focused on several types of fraud and criminal activity connected to online payments:
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- Voice phishing, in which callers impersonate trusted people or organizations.
- Romance scams that exploit a relationship to obtain money.
- Online sextortion, involving threats to expose intimate material.
- Investment fraud and e-commerce fraud.
- Business-email compromise, where criminals use deceptive or compromised business email to divert payments.
- Money laundering linked to illegal online gambling.
Investment fraud, business-email compromise and e-commerce fraud together accounted for 75% of the investigated cases, according to INTERPOL. The release did not break that share down by category or state the number of cases in each one.
How did authorities interrupt payments?
Investigators used INTERPOL’s Global Rapid Intervention of Payments mechanism, known as I-GRIP, to coordinate stop-payment requests and account freezes across borders. The purpose is to help authorities act on suspicious transactions quickly enough to disrupt the movement of money between jurisdictions.
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INTERPOL also said officers identified 367 virtual-asset accounts linked to transnational organized crime. That is an account count, not a reported dollar value for those specific accounts.
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What did INTERPOL warn about AI and deepfakes?
Alongside the operation’s results, INTERPOL warned that criminals were using or could use AI-generated synthetic content, deepfakes and voice cloning to impersonate people. The risks it highlighted included sexual blackmail and investment fraud. It also warned about NFT “rug pulls,” in which promoters abandon a project after attracting buyers or investors.
These warnings describe criminal trends; the release does not say that every case in HAECHI IV involved AI or that a specific share of the arrests resulted from deepfake or voice-cloning scams.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the headline does—and does not—mean
The headline’s figures summarize results INTERPOL reported for a multi-country operation, not a worldwide estimate of all online fraud. The operation’s scale shows how international coordination can support account freezes and asset seizures, but the reported totals alone do not reveal how much money victims lost overall or how much seized property will be returned to them.
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