Interpol announced on Thursday, 9 July, that approximately 5,800 people have been arrested and around $300 million seized as part of a global operation targeting psychological manipulation fraud.
The operation, conducted between January and April and involving police forces from 97 countries, focused primarily on fraudulent schemes that exploit victims’ trust to extract money or confidential information.
Among the crimes targeted were business email compromise, sextortion, online romance fraud, identity theft, and investment fraud, Interpol said in a statement on the operation, dubbed ‘First Light 2026’, which it coordinated.
The high number of identified victims — 142,000 — ‘underscores the extent to which’ this type of fraud ‘has become a large-scale transnational threat, affecting individuals, businesses and governments’, Interpol said.
The Lyon, France-based international criminal police organisation cited, as one example, the arrest of 82 individuals in Eswatini — formerly Swaziland — and the dismantling of ‘a criminal network that operated illegal online gambling and laundered money’ derived from ‘sophisticated identity theft fraud’.
The operation also led to the seizure of ‘a realistic replica of a Brazilian police station, complete with fake uniforms’. According to Interpol, fraudsters used the replica to impersonate Brazil’s Federal Police during video calls, convincing victims they were the subject of a criminal investigation and persuading them to transfer funds to keep their money ‘safe’ — funds that were subsequently stolen.
Interpol also cited the case of a Singapore-based raw materials trading company that was targeted by criminals posing as one of its suppliers. In Macau, fake government officials convinced a victim to transfer money under the pretext of a fraud investigation; the suspects were arrested shortly before the victim was due to transfer approximately $372,000 to them.
Source: Diário Económico
Original article: https://www.diarioeconomico.co.mz/2026/07/09/mundo/interpol-detem-5800-pessoas-e-apreende-300-m-em-operacao-mundial-contra-fraude/
