Hundreds arrested in Africa-wide cybercrime crackdown | Global News Podcast

Welcome to the Global News podcast on. YouTube, where we go behind the. headlines to find out more about a story. and why it matters. I'm Celia Hatton. Cyber crime, in which criminals target. individuals or companies online with the. aim of defrauding or disrupting them, is. a growing problem across Africa. Often, it's done by sending malicious links and. emails or text messages. Now, a huge. police operation cenamed Operation. Sentinel across several African.

countries has led to nearly 600 arrests. and the recovery of millions of dollars. We're joined by our correspondent in. Johannesburg, Miami Jones. So, Mayani, how serious is cyber crime across Africa. and what have countries been doing to. tackle it? >> Well, according to Interool, cyber crime. is becoming a real big problem in. Africa. They describe it as a growing. issue. Uh according to them around 30%. of all recorded crimes in East and West.

Africa are cyber crimes. And so in order. to tackle it they launched this. operation sentinel. It involves 19. countries that came together and. collaborated to try and crack down on. some of these cyber criminals. uh these. countries range from here in South. Africa which is the continent's most. industrialized nation to less developed. countries like Benin Republic like the. Democratic Republic of Congo. So every. single region from east to west, southern and central Africa uh. subsaharan Africa I should say were all.

covered. >> Okay. So can you tell us more about the. particular crimes involved in this. operation? Who was arrested and and what. have they been accused of? So this particular operation operation. sentinel focused on three main uh areas. of kind of digital crime. One of them is. uh so fraud carried out by people. impersonating say a senior person at a. company pretending to be them via email. and using that to get uh employees from. that company to wire money to a certain.

account or to reveal um some sensitive. business information. Um they also um. focused on digital extortion and on. ransomware. So that's when you deploy a. software to a company's uh internet or. computer system um and that keeps the. members of the company out of that. system and if they want to get back. access they have to pay the criminals. money. So they focus on those three. areas because they say those are the. three areas according to their research. where there's been the biggest kind of. rise in number of incidents reported.

>> Okay. So we're seeing a lot of uh of. police resources being devoted to. tackling cyber crime. I wonder if we're. also seeing more education in terms of. educating the public not to click on. malicious links for example. >> Yeah, I mean this particular operation. [clears throat] focused more on kind of. beefing up police capacity and that's. because Interpol says that cyber crime. even if it originates in Africa or. affects African customers, it can happen. to anybody anywhere in the world and by.

its very nature it's very international. said they said they needed international. collaboration between these 19 African. countries but also agencies in Europe. and priv members of the private sector. to try and find solutions to this. So. this operation has primarily focused on. building up the capacity of uh crime. agencies, policing agencies across the. African continent to try and deal with. this problem because with technological. developments happening all the time, it's not a problem that's going to go. away anytime soon. So Mayana, in which.

countries in Africa is this really a. problem? Is is cyber crime really. affecting either the people who live. there or are cyber crime gangs thought. to be located? >> Yeah. So this is a problem that seems to. be affecting most African countries. That's because internet penetration is. increasing right across the continent. But the most effective countries are. those that have uh what they describe as. uh strong digital penetration where lots. of people have phones, lots of people. have access to the internet. So for.

example in its research um Interipo. released a a report earlier this year. looking specifically at cyber crime in. Africa. They found that Egypt and South. Africa were two of the countries that. were most affected by ransomware. attacks. So those are these attacks. where software is deployed. it freezes. uh locks people out of their computer. system and then they have to pay money. to get access to that. So obviously both. of these countries uh are quite. industrialized have a lot of big. companies working there um and that. provides those criminals with lots of.

access to potential victims. Um but it's. truly a problem that they found. everywhere. An example of one of the. issues that they tackled in this. operation um was uh a collaboration. between groups in Nigeria and Ghana. where they targeted uh fast food. They. mimicked the websites of popular fast. food restaurants. People would go to. those websites, place their order. thinking they're going to get their fast. food in however long, half an hour, etc. But then the food order would never. come. And it turned out that the. criminals were pocketing that money and.

not delivering the food. to a group of. criminals from Ghana in that instance. were detained. So it's a problem that. we're seeing right across the board. It's affecting government agencies, it's. infecting affecting uh private. individuals um and it's infecting. affecting big companies as well. So uh. everybody's been affected by this. >> So we've got as we say a growing problem. across a number of countries in Africa. So what more needs to be done to tackle. it?

Well, at the moment, uh um initiatives. like Operation Sentinel are trying to. build up the capacity of uh criminal. agencies and police agencies across the. continent. Um but they say that more. needs to be done particularly when it. comes to keeping uh laws in African. countries up to date with technological. developments. Now, this is an issue. right across the world that the. technology is moving much faster than. the law can move um to try and stop it. But uh into Paul is saying lots of.

African countries are doing a lot better. are trying to update their legislature. so it's more in line with other uh. countries around the world. Um they're. also working towards training police. agencies, security agencies so that they. know more about digital crime and then. they're also investing in these. specialized units that can spot digital. crimes early on. So for example, they. gave an example of a of an attack on a. government agency in Ghana that was. spotted quite early um by the digital. team that was in charge of that and they. were able to stop it. So if more of.

these initiatives are done uh Interpool. and other police agencies believe that. they might be able to keep up with this. But let's be very honest, this is a. growing problem. Unemployment is huge. across Africa. Some analysts have argued. that this provides fertile grounds for. criminal gangs that work in the digital. space to recruit people. And so. governments, policing agencies, and. international policing agencies are. going to have to work a lot harder if. they want to stop this from becoming an. even bigger problem in years to come. >> Mayani, thank you. Mayani Jones speaking.

to us from Johannesburg. And you can. hear more on this story on the Global. News podcast. Just listen to us wherever. you get your podcasts. And if you like. this episode, please subscribe to us on. YouTube. And if you'd like us to cover. any more stories, please leave a comment. below. Bye-bye.