Interpol announced on Friday that it would remove 45,000 malicious IP addresses and servers used in connection with phishing, malware and ransomware campaigns as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to dismantle criminal networks, thwart new threats and protect victims from fraud.
This effort is part of an international law enforcement effort involving 72 countries and territories. Additionally, 94 people were arrested in connection with the incident, and a further 110 people are still under investigation. A total of 212 electronic devices and servers were seized during raids at various key locations.
One such operation in Bangladesh resulted in the arrest of 40 suspects and the seizure of 134 electronic devices in connection with a wide range of cyber crimes, including loan and employment fraud, identity theft and credit card fraud.
In Togo, authorities arrested 10 suspects on suspicion of running a fraudulent ring in a residential area. Some were involved in hacking social media accounts, while others carried out social engineering schemes such as romance scams and sextortion.
After gaining unauthorized access to a victim’s account, the scammers contacted their online contacts and impersonated the account owner to enter into a fake relationship and defraud friends and family. The ultimate goal of this scam was to trick secondary victims into sending money.
Finally, Macau law enforcement authorities identified more than 33,000 phishing and fraudulent websites related to fake casinos and critical infrastructure such as banks, governments, and payment services. These websites are set up to defraud victims by instructing them to top up their balances or enter personal information.
This cybercrime crackdown represents the third phase of Operation Synergia, which ran from July 18, 2025 to January 31, 2026. The previous two phases took place in 2023 and 2024 and resulted in the identification of thousands of malicious servers and numerous arrests.
India’s CBI targets cross-border fraud cases
The disclosure comes after India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) announced that it had carried out coordinated raids in 15 locations across Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab as part of a large-scale organized online investment and part-time job scam involving a fintech platform called Pyypl, primarily based in Dubai.
“Thousands of unsuspecting Indian citizens were allegedly defrauded of billions of rupees through a deceptive online scheme run by an organized cross-border fraud syndicate,” the CBI said.
The criminal network allegedly used social media platforms, mobile applications, and encrypted messaging services to lure victims with promises of high profits from online investments and part-time job opportunities.
As revealed by Proofpoint in October 2024, these scams aim to trick victims into making small deposits, gain their trust by showing them fictitious profits on fake sites, and then convince them to invest larger sums.
As soon as the funds are deposited, they are quickly transferred through multiple mule bank accounts to hide the trace of the funds, and then cashed out via offshore ATM withdrawals using debit cards that support international transactions or wallet charges on overseas fintech platforms such as Pyypl using the Visa and Mastercard payment networks.
According to the CBI, these withdrawals appear to have been made without being recognized as point-of-sale (PoS) transactions in the banking system. Some of the stolen funds were converted into cryptocurrency, consolidated into accounts linked to 15 shell companies, and routed through two organizations.
“These entities converted the proceeds into USDT through an India-based virtual asset exchange and transferred the virtual currency to whitelisted wallets,” the CBI added.
Criminal investigation authorities have identified Ashok Kumar Sharma and other anonymous co-conspirators as key members of the syndicate. Sharma was taken into custody. It also said that various bank accounts used by the organization were frozen and incriminating documents and digital evidence related to the syndicate’s day-to-day operations were seized.
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