In a broad, global operation involving 97 countries, law enforcement authorities arrested 5,811 suspects and seized $293 million in illicit assets. Operation First Light 2026, coordinated by Interpol from mid-January to late April, focused on combating social engineering fraud, including business email compromise, sextortion, romance scams, identity theft and investment fraud, and related money laundering activities.
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“This included proactive steps against high-value targets, raids on identified premises, the blocking or freezing of bank accounts and virtual wallets, the application for Interpol notices and diffusions (note) and the proactive use of I-GRIP (Global Rapid Intervention of Payments),” writes Interpol in a statement. I-GRIP is a payment stop mechanism that enables the rapid blocking of illicit financial flows – both fiat and virtual assets.
More than 142,000 victims
According to Interpol, as part of “First Light 2026,” more than 142,000 victims were identified worldwide, 31,014 bank accounts were blocked, and 15,606 other suspects were identified in addition to those arrested. In Eswatini, for example, police arrested 82 people and dismantled a criminal network that ran illegal online gambling, money laundering and sophisticated fraud schemes using false identities. The authorities confiscated, among other things, a deceptively realistic replica of a Brazilian police station – complete with fake uniforms, signage and equipment. The fraudsters deceived their victims by impersonating Brazilian Federal Police via video calls and tricked them into transferring “security” funds that were subsequently stolen.
In Thailand, police arrested two people and uncovered a money laundering scheme in which illegally obtained funds from romance scams were transferred into various cryptocurrencies. In Singapore and Oman, authorities used the I-GRIP process to block a $6.6 million illegal transfer linked to a business email compromise scam.
Operation First Light 2026 was funded by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and supported by regional police organizations ASEANAPOL, GCCPOL and Europol. Participating countries included Austria, Denmark, France, Liechtenstein, Great Britain and the United States; Switzerland and Germany were not involved.
Strikes against organized crime
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“Criminal networks exploit human psychology to manipulate their victims. No country can be safe unless all states have the necessary resources and take decisive action together,” said Tomonobu Kaya, head of Interpol’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Center. Interpol supports member states in “developing a comprehensive and coordinated strategy to combat cyber-enabled financial crime, organized criminal networks and related money laundering.”
Operation First Light 2026 follows the global cybercrime operation Synergia !II, which took 45,000 IP addresses and servers offline and detained 94 people. Previously, a large-scale raid in numerous African countries in December 2025 and January 2026 led to the arrest of 651 suspects and the seizure of more than 4.3 million US dollars. The operation, dubbed “Red Card 2.0,” targeted criminal networks behind high-interest investment scams, mobile money scams and fraudulent lending transactions. It was the second major coordinated operation against cybercrime across Africa in just a few months. During Operation Serengeti 2.0 in 18 African countries in August last year, authorities arrested 1,209 people and seized almost $100 million.
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