A new global anti-fraud operation against cybercrime has led to the arrest of over 5800 people and the interception of almost $300m in illicit assets.
The operational phase of the crackdown effort, dubbed Operation First Light 2026, ran from January 15 to April 30, 2026, and involved law enforcement agencies from 97 countries and territories.
It was coordinated by Interpol, with the help of Aseanapol, GGCPol and Europol, and received funding from China’s Ministry of Public Security, the country’s primary law enforcement agency.
According to an Interpol statement on July 9, Operation First Light focused on combatting social engineering scams, including romance scams and business email compromise (BEC) schemes, and associated money laundering activities.
Over 15,000 Suspects of Cybercrime Identified
The operational phase included actions such as raiding identified premises, blocking or freezing 31,014 bank accounts and many cryptocurrency wallets and taking actions against high-value targets.
It also involved requesting 99 Interpol Notices and Diffusions and proactively utilizing the international law enforcement agency’s Global Rapid Intervention of Payments (I-GRIP), a stop-payment mechanism that facilitates the swift blocking of illicit financial flows of both fiat and virtual assets.
On-the-ground operations occurred in Brazil, Eswatini, China’s territory Macao, Oman, Palau, Singapore and Thailand.
In the Southern African nation of Eswatini, authorities seized 240 electronic devices, foreign currency and a realistic replica of a Brazilian police station, complete with fake uniforms, signage and equipment.
“Posing as Brazil’s Federal Police via video call, the scammers deceived their targets into believing they were victims of a crime, tricking them into transferring funds for ‘safekeeping,’ which were then stolen,” Interpol said.
This large-scale operation resulted in identifying 15,606 suspects and over 142,000 victims globally as well as the arrest of 5,811 individuals and the interception of $293m in illicit assets.
Finally, the international agency claimed that out of 152,808 individual fraud and scam cases analyzed, 23,715 have been solved thanks to the operation.
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