Online Reporter
Freeman Razemba
Senior Reporter
Zimbabwe is among 19 countries with law enforcement agents that combined to arrest 574 suspects and recovered approximately US$3 million in a significant cybercrime International Criminal Police Organisation Operation across Africa.
This operation targeted business e-mail compromise schemes, digital extortion and ransomware.
Operation Sentinel which was held between October 27 and November 27, 2025, focused on three prevalent crime types: business email compromise (BEC), digital extortion and ransomware.
The crimes were all identified as growing threats in INTERPOL’s 2025 Africa Cyber Threat Assessment Report.
During the INTERPOL-coordinated initiative, over 6 000 malicious links were taken down and six distinct ransomware variants were decrypted.
The cases investigated during the month-long operation were linked to estimated financial loss of more than US$21 million.
Operation Sentinel was held under the umbrella of the African Joint Operation against Cybercrime (AFJOC), funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and through the Global Action on Cybercrime Enhanced project (GLACY-e), a joint project of the European Union and the Council of Europe.
In June, INTERPOL released the 2025 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment Report, which revealed that cyber related crimes were a medium-to-high proportion of all crimes.
Other participants included Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senega, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda and Zambia.
In a statement, Mr Neal Jetton, the INTERPOL’s Director of Cybercrime, said, “The scale and sophistication of cyber attacks across Africa are accelerating, especially against critical sectors like finance and energy. The outcomes from Operation Sentinel reflect the commitment of African law enforcement agencies, working in close coordination with international partners. Their actions have successfully protected livelihoods, secured sensitive personal data and preserved critical infrastructure.”
Operation Sentinel was made possible through close coordination with INTERPOL’s private sector partners Team Cymru, The Shadowserver Foundation, Trend Micro, TRM Labs and Uppsala Security. Partnerships with private sectors provided critical technical support in tracing IP addresses utilized at various stages of the ransomware attack lifecycle and sextortion schemes, as well as assisting in freezing illicit financial assets.
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