Covid-19 pandemic and the global economic crisis, it is emerging, has led to an increase in cybercrimes in sub-Saharan Africa, investigators say.
Security officials argue that “the growth will have a direct impact on the rest of the world, where many victims of hugely lucrative fraud live.”
According to the experts, the sharp increase in cybercrime in Africa is due to “rapid growth of internet use at a time when police forces and criminal justice systems have been weakened by the economic consequences of a series of major challenges.”
Prof Landry Signé, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution says: “The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization around the world.” But, he argues, as life has shifted increasingly online, cybercriminals have exploited the opportunity to attack vital digital infrastructure.
Online scams such as banking and credit card fraud, according to Interpol, have become the most prevalent and pressing cyberthreat in Africa.
In an operation carried by Interpol out at the beginning of November in 14 countries highlighted “the scale of the threat from cybercrime on the continent and beyond.”
Police arrested more than 70 alleged fraudsters linked to a Nigerian criminal network known as Black Axe in South Africa, Nigeria and Ivory Coast – as well as in Europe, the Middle East, south-east Asia and the US, as per Jason Burke.
“Almost 50 properties were searched and about $1m intercepted in bank accounts. A residential property, three cars, tens of thousands in cash and 12,000 sim cards were seized,” he writes.
Rory Corcoran, the acting head of Interpol’s new Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre believes: “It is way wider and broader than these 14 countries. We are dealing with a highly organized international network. These guys are not opportunists … We’re mapping them out around the world.”