Interpol-led operation disrupts cybercrime rings in 19 African nations

Interpol’s Operation Sentinel successfully decrypted six ransomware strains, arrested 574 suspects, and recovered $3m in stolen funds.

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INTERPOL has announced the successful conclusion of Operation Sentinel, a month-long, coordinated global crackdown on cybercrime across Africa that resulted in a major blow to ransomware and business email compromise (BEC) operators. The action, involving law enforcement from 19 countries, yielded hundreds of arrests and a significant technical achievement.

The operation, which ran from October 27 to November 27, 2025, focused on dismantling three escalating threats: ransomware, digital extortion, and BEC.

Six strains cracked, millions recovered

Operation Sentinel's key achievements demonstrate the power of international collaboration and public-private partnerships:

• Ransomware decryption

• Law enforcement agencies, in partnership with private cybersecurity firms (including Trend Micro and The Shadowserver Foundation), successfully decrypted six distinct ransomware variants. This achievement enables victims to recover encrypted data without paying a ransom.

While the specific names of the six strains were not disclosed by Interpol, the action prevents millions in future losses.

Arrests and disruptions

A total of 574 suspects were arrested across the 19 participating nations. Authorities also took down over 6,000 malicious links and fraudulent websites linked to various cyber scams.

The operation recovered approximately $3 million in illicit funds and disrupted criminal activities linked to estimated financial losses exceeding $21 million.

Key case examples

The coordinated effort successfully halted several high-impact cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure:

• Ghana ransomware recovery: Authorities in Ghana conducted advanced malware analysis on a ransomware attack against an unnamed financial institution that had encrypted 100 terabytes (TB) of data. They developed a decryption tool and successfully recovered nearly 30 TB of the encrypted data, preventing a major institutional loss.

• Senegal BEC freeze: In Senegal, law enforcement successfully tracked a BEC attempt targeting a large petroleum company where fraudsters had infiltrated internal email systems to authorize a fraudulent wire transfer of $7.9 million. Authorities managed to freeze the destination accounts within hours, halting the transfer before withdrawal.

The operation underscores Interpol’s strategy to build the capacity of national law enforcement agencies in Africa to tackle sophisticated, cross-border cyber threats.