Authorities across 19 countries arrested 574 suspects and seized approximately 3 million dollars during a month-long operation targeting cybercrime throughout Africa. The initiative successfully dismantled over 6,000 malicious links and recovered millions in stolen funds by focusing on business email compromise, digital extortion, and ransomware.
Law enforcement agencies from 19 different nations recently concluded a major offensive against digital criminal networks operating across the African continent. Known as Operation Sentinel, this coordinated effort ran from late October to late November and resulted in the arrest of 574 individuals suspected of involvement in various cyber activities. During the operation, investigators managed to recover roughly 3 million dollars in illicit funds while identifying financial losses tied to these cases that exceeded 21 million dollars.
The tactical focus of the operation was driven by data from the recent 2025 Africa Cyber Threat Assessment Report, which highlighted business email compromise, digital extortion, and ransomware as the primary threats to the region. To combat these issues, technical experts worked to take down more than 6,000 malicious links that were being used to facilitate fraud and malware distribution. Additionally, the team successfully decrypted six different types of ransomware, providing a significant breakthrough for victims who had their data locked by various criminal organizations.
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One of the most notable successes of the operation occurred in Senegal, where a large petroleum company became the target of a highly sophisticated business email compromise scheme. Fraudsters had managed to infiltrate the company’s internal email systems and were impersonating high-level executives to authorize a fraudulent wire transfer of nearly 8 million dollars. Through rapid communication and international cooperation, local authorities were able to freeze the destination accounts and stop the massive transfer of funds before any money could be permanently withdrawn.
In Ghana, a financial institution faced a severe crisis when a ransomware attack encrypted 100 terabytes of critical data and resulted in the theft of 120,000 dollars. This attack caused significant disruptions to the bank’s essential services and threatened its daily operations. However, Ghanaian authorities performed advanced malware analysis on the specific strain used in the attack, which allowed them to build a specialized decryption tool. This technical response enabled the bank to recover nearly 30 terabytes of its lost information while leading to the arrest of several suspects involved in the breach.
The success of Operation Sentinel underscores the importance of cross-border collaboration in the fight against modern cyber threats that ignore national boundaries. By sharing intelligence and technical resources, the participating countries were able to mitigate substantial financial damage and protect vital infrastructure from digital extortion. The operation serves as a reminder of the growing capabilities of African law enforcement agencies to tackle complex technological crimes and bring those responsible to justice.
Source: Coordinated Cybercrime Operation Across Africa Leads To 574 Arrests And 3 Million Recovered
Impressive scale for Operation Sentinel across 19 nations. The Senegal BEC case shows how fast-moving intel sharing can actualy work when financial institutions coordinate. What's interesting tho is the ransomware decryption piece - recovering 30TB of data suggests they reverse-engineered custom strains. I'm curious whether the decryption keys were shared regionaly or if each country builttheir own tools independently.