Cybercrime: Interpol arrests 94 people and takes down 45,000 IP addresses

A massive international operation led by Interpol has dealt a severe blow to digital criminal infrastructures worldwide.

Named Synergia III Operation, the initiative took place over several months, precisely from July 18, 2025 to January 31, 2026, focusing in particular on credit card fraud, romance scams, and large-scale phishing campaigns.

The results announced by the international organization outline a high-impact intervention, with the arrest of 94 individuals suspected of orchestrating and conducting large-scale cybercrime.

These are complemented by 110 people currently under investigation, illustrating how enforcement agencies are meticulously tracing the entire command chain of illegal organizations.

Law enforcement also seized 212 electronic devices and blocked over 45,000 malicious IP addresses associated with the suspects’ activities, effectively rendering them harmless.

Interpol: Operation Synergia III is a success

The investigations highlighted a widespread distribution of criminal cells, with activity peaks observed in specific geographic areas.

Bangladesh recorded a significant share of the interventions, culminating in the arrest of 40 people and the seizure of 134 devices ready for forensic analysis. Local authorities linked these individuals to a wide range of fraudulent schemes, including identity theft, fake job offers, and financial fraud.

In Africa, the police in Togo dismantled a network based in a quiet residential area, arresting 10 individuals. The members of this group had complementary specializations: some handled technical details, hacking social media accounts, while others relied on social engineering, carrying out romance scams and sex-themed extortion.

Meanwhile, in Macao investigations focused on dismantling the actual digital infrastructure. More than 30,000 fraudulent websites were identified and shut down.

Many of these portals simulated interfaces of banking institutions, government entities and payment systems to steal the data of unsuspecting visitors, or appeared as fake online casinos designed to take deposits without ever allowing users to actually play.

Strategic collaboration between public and private sectors

The success of the operation rests on close collaboration between authorities from 72 nations and major private cybersecurity entities, including Group-IB, S2W and Trend Micro.

Neal Jetton, head of Interpol’s cybercrime division, stressed that the digital threats of 2026 have reached an unprecedented level of sophistication and destructiveness. In light of these challenges, he explained, the alliance between law enforcement agencies and private-sector experts remains the primary way to dismantle illicit networks and protect victims worldwide.

Also Robert McArdle, director of cybercrime research at TrendAI unit of Trend Micro, reiterated the crucial importance of sharing intelligence. Understanding in depth the criminal ecosystem behind a single malicious server or phishing kit, according to the expert, is an indispensable step to map infrastructures, identify those responsible and neutralize threats in a broad and structural manner.

A Continuously Expanding Offensive

The rapidly evolving nature of transnational crimes has made a constant and sustained commitment by authorities necessary. When Interpol launched the first iteration of this campaign in 2023, the need to curb the growing professionalism of cybercriminals was already a globally shared urgency.

Analyzing historical data, the progression of the initiative is evident: the first phase, conducted from late 2023 to early 2024, involved 52 nations and led to the seizure of merely 1,300 IP addresses. The second wave, concluded by the end of 2024 and aimed at countering ransomware and data theft, saw the participation of 95 countries.

Today, with the closure of 45,000 IP addresses under Synergia III, law enforcement demonstrates an increasingly broad capacity to respond and an international coordination capable of tackling ever more pervasive digital threats.