AI enables over half of cybercrime in Africa

The International Police Organization has warned that artificial intelligence is enabling 55 per cent of reported cybercrimes across Africa, making attacks faster and increasingly difficult to detect.

The INTERPOL’s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026 highlights the evolution of cyber-criminality from isolated incidents into an industrialized, borderless ecosystem.

The newly released 40-page report draws on survey data from 36 member countries in Africa, which recorded more than 1.1 billion mobile subscribers in 2025.

Cybercrime-related losses have surged since 2024, from $192 million to $484 million, largely driven by AI-facilitated scams, credential harvesting, and automated phishing.

Africa-based actors target victims in Europe and North America using infrastructure in multiple jurisdictions. East Africa is identified as a hub of mobile money fraud and infrastructure-targeted ransomware.

Business email compromise and romance scams are prolific in Central and West Africa, while Southern Africa’s ultra-high connectivity makes the region an attraction for fraudsters seeking maximum disruption.

Southern and West Africa have the highest number of scam centres, with online schemes being the most reported type of cybercrime in 2025. Attackers leveraged AI, social media, and mobile money platforms.

AI-generated digital personas are being used to bypass biometric verification systems and to open bank accounts, secure mobile loans and register SIM cards under false names.

According to the report, cybercrime legislation in Africa is fragmented, and AI readiness in law enforcement agencies remains “alarmingly low” despite the expansion of digital transformation.

It further reveals that the absence of real-time, inter-agency data sharing between banks, telecom companies, and law enforcement creates a blind spot in efforts to combat financial fraud.

INTERPOL official, Neal Jetton said the use of AI in automating stages of a cyberattack—reconnaissance, phishing, extortion and evasion—makes cybercrime a major criminal threat to Africa.

Jetton, Director of the Cybercrime Unit, added, “When countries work together, cybercriminal infrastructure can be identified, disrupted and dismantled.”

The report recommends enhanced cross-border cooperation, digital forensic capabilities, AI literacy among law enforcement officers, and public-private partnerships on cybercrime prevention, detection and response.

In the past year, INTERPOL’s four cybercrime operations—Serengeti 2.0, Contender 3.0, Sentinel, and Red Card 2.0—led to 1,500 arrests, seizure of hundreds of devices and the recovery of over $100 million.