“Authorities in 14 African countries have arrested 260 suspects and seized 1,235 electronic devices in a coordinated international operation against cyber-enabled crime. The crackdown targeted transnational criminal networks exploiting digital platforms, particularly social media, to manipulate victims and defraud them financially. Specifically, the operation focused on romance scams, where perpetrators build online relationships to extract money from victims, and sextortion, in which victims are blackmailed with explicit images or videos. During Operation Contender 3.0 (28 July – 11 August 2025), police identified IP addresses, digital infrastructures, domains and social media profiles linked to members of the scam syndicates,” says Interpol in a Friday statement.

“These leads and the subsequent arrests also resulted in the seizure of USB drives, SIM cards and forged documents, as well as the take down of 81 cybercrime infrastructures across Africa. Investigators identified 1,463 victims linked to the scams, estimating their losses at nearly USD 2.8 million,” the statement continued and damn, that seems kind of nickel and dime, right?

Considering the average would be $1,913 per identified victim and for all we know there could’ve been significantly more who remained unknown to authorities it’s possible the ROI on the scams was much lower. Either way, while $1,913 is not nothing and no doubt there were many scammed out of considerably more than that, these whole operations do not seem especially lucrative, especially given the amount of manpower involved. They nabbed 260 guys but who knows how many more got away and even if all were caught you’re looking at something like $11,000 per suspect pulled in during an undefined period of time, weighed down by a shit ton of overhead for 1,235 devices.

The old “crime doesn’t pay” rarely has been closer to true than in this stupid operation.