Artificial intelligence is now linked to more than half of reported cybercrime cases across Africa, according to a new report by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), highlighting the rapid transformation of cybercrime across the continent.
Cybercrime is no longer limited to isolated incidents. It has evolved into an organized, industrialized and borderless criminal ecosystem that increasingly relies on advanced technologies and artificial intelligence to expand the scale and sophistication of attacks.
According to the INTERPOL African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026, artificial intelligence is linked to approximately 55% of reported cybercrime across Africa, making cyberattacks faster, more scalable and increasingly difficult for victims and digital platforms to detect.
Africa’s Digital Transformation Expands Cybercrime Risks
The growing cyber threat comes as Africa undergoes rapid digital transformation, with more than 1.1 billion mobile subscribers recorded across the continent in 2025.
Despite this accelerated digital growth, Africa continues to face major challenges in combating cybercrime, including fragmented cybercrime legislation across African countries and alarmingly low levels of artificial intelligence readiness within law enforcement agencies.
The 40-page INTERPOL report, based on survey data collected from 36 African member countries, identifies a fundamental shift in the nature of cybercrime across the continent.
Cybercrime, once characterized largely by isolated and limited incidents, has developed into an industrialized, borderless criminal ecosystem that exploits modern technology to expand the reach of attacks and target victims across multiple countries.
Cyberthreat Landscape Across Africa
The INTERPOL assessment highlights significant regional differences in the nature of cyber threats across Africa.
East Africa has emerged as a hub for mobile money fraud and ransomware attacks targeting critical infrastructure.
In Central and West Africa, Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes and romance scams have become particularly widespread, targeting both businesses and individuals.
Meanwhile, Southern Africa, with its exceptionally high levels of digital connectivity, has become a major attraction for global cybercriminal actors seeking opportunities to cause maximum disruption and impact.
Cybercrime Losses in Africa More Than Double
The report highlights the significant financial cost of cybercrime to African economies and individuals.
Since 2024, cybercrime-related losses have more than doubled, rising from approximately $192 million to $484 million.
The increase has been driven primarily by the growing use of artificial intelligence in scams, credential harvesting and automated social engineering campaigns, enabling criminals to target larger numbers of victims in less time.
According to the report, online scams remained the most commonly reported form of cybercrime in Africa in 2025, with attackers increasingly using mobile money platforms, social media and artificial intelligence tools to reach their targets.
Notably, 72% of surveyed countries reported the presence of scam centres, with the highest concentration recorded in Southern and West Africa.
Artificial Intelligence Raises the Sophistication of Cyberthreats
Artificial intelligence is not merely accelerating cyberattacks; it is also making them more sophisticated and increasingly difficult to detect.
According to the INTERPOL report, digital sextortion and online harassment remain widespread, with criminals increasingly using deepfakes and AI-generated synthetic media to facilitate such crimes.
Some 600,000 sextortion detections were recorded by TrendAI, one of several partners working with INTERPOL.
The sophistication of Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes has also increased dramatically, with cybercriminals using artificial intelligence to generate highly convincing email correspondence, making fraudulent communications harder to distinguish from legitimate business messages.
The report noted that Africa-based threat actors have targeted victims in Europe and North America, using digital infrastructure distributed across multiple jurisdictions. This underscores the increasingly transnational nature of modern cybercrime.
Lack of Real-Time Data Sharing Creates a Major Vulnerability
The INTERPOL assessment identified a critical weakness in efforts to combat financial fraud: the lack of real-time data sharing between banks, telecommunications companies and law enforcement agencies.
This information gap provides cybercriminals with an opportunity to move quickly and exploit vulnerabilities before authorities can identify and respond to their activities.
Criminals are also moving beyond simply stealing existing credentials and are increasingly creating entirely synthetic identities.
These AI-generated digital identities combine real personal information with fabricated elements to create convincing digital personas capable of bypassing even some advanced biometric verification systems.
According to the report, such synthetic identities have been used to open bank accounts, secure mobile loans and register SIM cards under false names, further complicating efforts to combat financial fraud and digital identity-related crime.
INTERPOL: International Cooperation Can Disrupt Cybercrime Networks
Neal Jetton, Director of INTERPOL’s Cybercrime Unit, said cybercrime has become one of the most significant criminal threats facing the region.
He noted that artificial intelligence is automating virtually every stage of a cyberattack, from reconnaissance and phishing to extortion and evasion.
Jetton also stressed that cooperation among countries can help identify, disrupt and dismantle the infrastructure used by cybercriminal networks.
17 African Countries Strengthen Cybercrime Legislation
The INTERPOL report highlights meaningful progress in cross-border efforts to combat cybercrime across Africa.
In 2025, 17 countries enacted or amended cybercrime legislation, strengthening their legal frameworks for tackling online criminal activity.
These efforts included the launch of an online reporting platform in Senegal aimed at enhancing the response to online violations affecting children.
At the same time, regionally coordinated capacity-building initiatives continue to strengthen African countries’ ability to respond to cyber threats and build long-term cyber resilience.
INTERPOL Operations Lead to More Than 1,500 Arrests
Operational cooperation has also produced significant results in the fight against cybercrime.
Four major cybercrime operations coordinated by INTERPOL — Operation Serengeti 2.0, Operation Contender 3.0, Operation Sentinel and Operation Red Card 2.0 — collectively resulted in the arrest of more than 1,500 people.
The operations also led to the seizure of hundreds of devices and the recovery of more than $100 million.
These results demonstrate the importance of international and regional cooperation in combating cybercriminal networks that exploit national borders and distribute their infrastructure across multiple countries and jurisdictions.
INTERPOL Calls for Stronger Digital and AI Capabilities
In its recommendations, the INTERPOL African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026 calls for a series of measures to strengthen African countries’ ability to confront the growing cybercrime threat.
The recommendations include standardizing digital forensic capabilities, strengthening cross-border cooperation and investing in artificial intelligence literacy among law enforcement officers.
The report also calls for formal public-private partnerships to support more effective cybercrime prevention, detection and response efforts.
INTERPOL’s African Cyberthreat Assessment
The INTERPOL African Cyberthreat Assessment is part of the organization’s African Joint Operation against Cybercrime initiative, which is funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
The assessment benefited from data contributed by several partners, including Fortinet, Mastercard, the Shadowserver Foundation, S2W and TrendAI.
Overall, the report highlights the growing challenges facing Africa as the continent’s digital transformation accelerates and mobile connectivity and digital financial services continue to expand.
At the same time, cybercriminals are increasingly exploiting artificial intelligence to develop more sophisticated methods of fraud and cyberattacks.
This growing threat makes stronger cooperation among African countries, law enforcement agencies and the private sector — alongside updated legislation, improved technical capabilities and greater AI literacy — increasingly essential to confronting the new generation of cybercrime in Africa.
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