An International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) coordinated operation has resulted in the arrest of 75 persons in a targeted global strike against Nigerian secret cult group, the Black Axe, and related West African organised crime groups.
Codenamed Operation Jackal, the joint law enforcement effort mobilised 14 countries across four continents.
In total, the operation resulted in 1.2 million Euros intercepted in bank accounts, 75 arrests, 49 property searches, seven INTERPOL Purple Notices, detailing criminal modus operandi and six INTERPOL Red Notices, issued for internationally-wanted fugitives.
The participating countries in Operation Jackal are: Argentina, Australia, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Nigeria, Spain, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (U.S.A).
The police operation, revealed by INTERPOL in a statement on its website, comes on the heels of the arrest of two suspected online scammers in South Africa last month.
Operation Jackal marks the first time that INTERPOL has coordinated a global operation specifically against the Black Axe, which is rapidly becoming a major security threat worldwide.
Black Axe and similar groups are responsible for majority of the world’s cyber-enabled financial fraud as well as many other serious crimes, according to evidence analysed by INTERPOL’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre (IFCACC) and national law enforcement.
In South Africa alone, the two suspects arrested were wanted for online scams that extracted $1.8 million from victims.
Over one coordinated “action week” (between September 26 and 30), police worldwide launched enforcement operations against individuals linked to the Black Axe group, arresting suspected criminal operators or money mules, raiding and shutting down premises and seizing assets related to ongoing cases.
Two INTERPOL operational support teams were also deployed in South Africa and Ireland to help coordinate international law enforcement teams on the ground.
In Italy, the Carabinieri made three arrests in Campobasso within the framework of the operation.
“Illicit financial funds are the lifeblood of transnational organised crime, and we have witnessed how groups like Black Axe will channel money gained from online financial scams into other crime areas, such as drugs and human trafficking. These groups demand a global response,” said Stephen Kavanagh, the Executive Director of Police Services of INTERPOL.
The immense quantity of assets seized, including 12,000 SIM cards, have provided new investigative leads for law enforcement, generating 13 analytical reports and allowing police to identify more than 70 additional suspects, said INTERPOL.
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It added that the lavish lifestyles and greed of many suspects – allegedly paid for by defrauding members of the public of their savings and other criminal activities – were on clear display on the scenes of their arrests.
Various luxury assets were seized, including residential property, three cars and tens of thousands in cash.
The operation also saw INTERPOL successfully deploying its new global stop-payment mechanism, called the Anti-Money Laundering Rapid Response Protocol (ARRP), currently in its pilot stage. Used within the framework of INTERPOL’s Global Financial Crime Task Force, the ARRP enables member-countries to quickly intercept illegal proceeds of crime.
“The ARRP is a game-changer in the fight against global financial crime, where speed and international cooperation are crucial to intercepting illicit funds before they disappear into the pockets of money mules abroad,” said Rory Corcoran, the Director of IFCACC. “INTERPOL’s Global Financial Crime Task Force has shown remarkable effectiveness in disrupting illicit financial flows, bringing together cyber and finance experts across sectors to track and cut off criminal money trails.”
Operation Jackal follows INTERPOL’s first-ever roundtable engagement event with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Singapore last month, where a new joint initiative to take action against illicit financial flows was launched between the organisations.
Up to $2 trillion in illicit funds are laundered through the global financial system every year, according to the United Nations (UN), and it is estimated that less than one per cent of these funds is intercepted and recovered.
“Fraud is transnational; there are no borders,” said Detective Superintendent Michael Cryan of Ireland’s Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, which participated in Operation Jackal.
“This is a great example of what can be achieved when international police forces cooperate by sharing intelligence, information and evidence. “By working together with support from INTERPOL, the activities of these criminal gangs can be greatly disrupted, making it safer online for everyone,” he added.
Operation Jackal was conducted under the aegis of “Project CEFIN”, which targets cyber-enabled financial crimes, and funded by the Republic of Korea.