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INTERPOL says authorities in 14 African countries arrested 260 suspects during Operation Contender 3.0, a coordinated operation targeting cyber-enabled romance scams and sextortion. The arrests took place from 28 July to 11 August 2025; INTERPOL announced the results on 26 September 2025. The arrests are not convictions.
What INTERPOL reported
INTERPOL reported that investigators linked 1,463 victims to the scams and estimated losses at nearly USD 2.8 million. Authorities also seized 1,235 electronic devices and took down 81 cybercrime infrastructures. These are INTERPOL’s operation-wide figures; the country examples below describe cases within that broader operation and should not be added to the overall totals.
The countries listed by INTERPOL were Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. The operation also received private-sector support from Group-IB and Trend Micro.
How investigators pursued the networks
INTERPOL says investigators identified IP addresses, digital infrastructure, domains and social-media profiles associated with scam syndicates. Those leads contributed to arrests and infrastructure takedowns. The release describes coordinated police work across the 14 participating countries, but does not establish that the operation ended the networks’ activity.
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How romance scams and sextortion differ
Romance scams
In a romance scam, an offender builds an online relationship and then uses it to extract money. INTERPOL’s Ghana cases included fake profiles, forged identities and stolen images; reported payment demands included fees for purported courier shipments and customs clearance. In Senegal, police described suspects impersonating celebrities and using emotional manipulation on social media and dating platforms.
Sextortion
Sextortion is blackmail involving explicit images or videos. INTERPOL described a Côte d’Ivoire case in which offenders manipulated people into sharing intimate images and then demanded payment to stop the images from being made public. Romance scams and sextortion can both exploit trust online, but the reported tactics are distinct; the examples do not mean every case involved every tactic.
What the country figures show
INTERPOL reported these figures for examples within the operation. They are not additional figures to sum with the operation-wide totals.
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|---|---|
| Ghana | 68 arrests, 835 devices seized, 108 victims identified, USD 450,000 in reported losses and USD 70,000 recovered. |
| Senegal | 22 suspects arrested; INTERPOL said 120 victims in the described network were defrauded of approximately USD 34,000. |
| Côte d’Ivoire | 24 suspects arrested and 809 victims identified in the described sextortion case. |
The country-level figures concern different reported cases and measures. For example, a victim identified in a country case is not necessarily an additional victim beyond the operation-wide count.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the announcement does—and does not—establish
The announcement documents arrests, device seizures, victims linked to scams, estimated losses and infrastructure takedowns. It does not say that the suspects were convicted, establish their eventual legal outcomes, or show that all victims’ losses were recovered.
INTERPOL’s interview separately describes almost 1,500 victims and USD 105,000 recovered in illicit revenues for Contender 3. That recovered-revenue figure is a separate measure from the release’s nearly USD 2.8 million estimated losses and should not be treated as an offset to that estimate. In the interview, INTERPOL Acting Executive Director of Police Services Cyril Gout said: “Cybercrime units across Africa are reporting a sharp rise in digital-enabled crimes such as sextortion and romance scams.”
INTERPOL’s 2025 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report characterizes romance scams as having surged across Africa in 2024 and becoming one of the continent’s most widespread online scams. The report excerpt available for this statement gives no percentage or count, so it is a broad report-level characterization rather than a quantified prevalence estimate.
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