LYON, France – A global anti-fraud operation involving 97 countries and territories has led to the arrest of 5,811 individuals and the interception of USD 293 million in illicit assets.
Operation First Light 2026 (15 Jan 2026 – 30 April 2026), coordinated by INTERPOL, focused on combatting social engineering scams and associated money laundering activities.
Social engineering is a broad term that refers to techniques that exploit a person’s trust to obtain money or confidential information. This type of fraud can include business email compromise, sextortion, as well as romance, impersonation or investment scams.
After an initial period of intelligence collection and exchange, participating countries took part in more than three months of operational activities. This included pro-active action against high-value targets, raiding identified premises, blocking or freezing bank accounts and virtual wallets, requesting INTERPOL Notices and Diffusions and proactively utilizing INTERPOL’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.
Over 142,000 victims globally were identified during Operation First Light 2026, highlighting the extent to which social engineering scams and fraud have escalated into a major transnational threat, affecting individuals, businesses and governments. Other significant results include:
- 152,808 cases analyzed
- 31,014 bank accounts blocked
- 23,715 cases solved
- 15,606 suspects identified
- 99 Notices and Diffusions issued
Tomonobu Kaya, Director of the INTERPOL Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre, said:
"Social engineering scams continue to pose a significant threat to our society. Criminal syndicates exploit human psychology to manipulate their targets, and no nation can stay safe unless all countries are equipped and committed to jointly fighting back. INTERPOL is dedicated to supporting member countries in building a comprehensive, coordinated strategy to tackle cyber-enabled financial crimes, organized criminal networks and the money laundering that fuels them."
From scam centres to money laundering: key cases reveal full spectrum of financial fraud
• In Eswatini, police arrested 82 people and dismantled a criminal network running illegal online gambling, money laundering and elaborate impersonation scams. 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.
Due to the scale and complexity of the digital evidence, an INTERPOL Operational Support Team was deployed at the request of authorities in Eswatini to provide forensic analysis of the seized devices.
• In Thailand, police made two arrests and uncovered a money laundering scheme that funneled illicit funds from romance scams into various cryptocurrencies, utilizing cross-chain token swaps to obscure the financial trail. Investigations showed that the digital wallet of one of the suspects, aged 20, had processed more than USD 122.5 million in just 10 months.
• Authorities in Singapore and Oman utilized I-GRIP to block a USD 6.6 million illicit transfer linked to a Business Email Compromise scam. In this case, a Singapore-based commodity trading firm was targeted by criminals impersonating a supplier.
• Police in Macao, China carried out anti-fraud community outreach as part of Operation First Light 2026. During the initiative, police discovered that one of the public participants was actively being manipulated by a criminal syndicate. Impersonating public officials, the perpetrators had convinced the victim to transfer money under the guise of a fraud investigation. Thanks to the public campaign, police were able to intervene before the victim sent close to USD 372,000 to the fraudsters.
• Authorities in Palau deported 22 individuals for their role in two connected scam centres being conducted from hotels. The suspects utilized cryptocurrency and illegal gambling websites to target victims in foreign countries, operating a range of online fraud schemes. Source: Interpol
