"Cybercrime has emerged as one of the most significant criminal threats to the region. AI is automating every stage of a cyber-attack from reconnaissance and phishing to extortion and evasion," said Neal Jetton, director of Interpol’s cybercrime unit.
Interpol's African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026: the headline figures
Interpol's African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026, drawing on data from its 36 member countries on the continent, states that AI-driven cybercrime now accounts for 55% of all reported digital crime in Africa. The report ties that rise to a sharp jump in recorded losses: from $192m in 2024 to $484m last year.
AI-powered techniques fueling new and familiar attacks
The report identifies several concrete ways artificial intelligence has changed the threat landscape. Digital sextortion and online harassment have been fuelled by AI-generated deepfakes; Interpol partner TrendAI recorded 600,000 sextortion attempts in the reporting period. Business email compromise (BEC) fraud attempts are being made more convincing because AI is used to generate highly convincing e-mail correspondence. At the same time, AI-driven ransomware families — for example, Qilin and Akira — are explicitly targeting healthcare systems, power utilities, and educational institutions in the region.
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Talk to us →Abuse of social media, mobile money and synthetic identities
Scammers are leveraging social media and mobile money platforms together with AI tools to expand reach and scale. The report finds online scams were the most common cybercrime type and notes that 72% of participating countries reported the presence of scam centres, with Southern and West Africa most likely to host such facilities. Victims of BEC and scams are most likely to be located in Europe and North America. Interpol also highlights how synthetic identities are being used to bypass biometric checks, and it points to a lack of real-time, inter-agency data sharing between banks, telecoms and law enforcement as creating new opportunities for financial fraudsters.
Dark web markets and lower barriers: Cybercrime-as-a-Service
Interpol warns that Cybercrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) platforms on the dark web have lowered the barriers to entry for would-be threat actors. Those platforms, combined with AI tools that automate reconnaissance, phishing, extortion and evasion, mean attackers need less technical skill to launch effective campaigns — a point the report emphasises in cataloguing how AI touches every stage of many modern intrusions.
Coordinated enforcement: arrests, seizures and recoveries
The report cites a series of coordinated law enforcement operations — Serengeti 2.0, Contender 2.0 and 3.0, Sentinel, and Red Card — as evidence that cross-border action can yield results. Those operations have collectively led to more than 1,500 arrests, the seizure of hundreds of devices, and the recovery of over $100m. Interpol says efforts to build regional capacity continued as well: 17 African countries enacted or amended cybercrime legislation last year. "However, we see that when countries work together, cybercriminal infrastructure can be identified, disrupted and dismantled," Jetton added.
What this means for banks, telecoms, and law enforcement
- Banks: The report’s finding that synthetic identities are being used to bypass biometric checks, and that a lack of real-time data sharing enables fraud, points toward operational gaps banks will need to address with partners and regulators.
- Telecoms: Because scam centres and mobile-money abuse are prevalent, telecom providers are both a target and a control point; the report highlights the need for closer, faster information flows between carriers and investigators.
- Law enforcement: The success of joint operations demonstrates the value of cross-border coordination and legislative change; at the same time, the report shows that enforcement must adapt to AI-enabled automation and CaaS marketplaces to sustain disruption.
The picture Interpol paints is unsettling in scale: AI tools are now implicated in the majority of reported digital crime in Africa, losses more than doubled in a single year, and hundreds of thousands of sextortion attempts were recorded. At the same time, regional arrests, device seizures and financial recoveries show that collaborative responses can have measurable impact. The report leaves a clear operational imperative — if real-time, inter-agency data sharing between banks, telecoms and law enforcement is the gap attackers exploit, will governments and private partners close it fast enough to blunt AI-enabled fraud?
Original story: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ai-accounts-over-half-cybercrime/
