The portrait is not of isolated hackers but of an industrialised ecosystem targeting the physical infrastructure that economies depend on. In 2025, INTERPOL and member countries conducted a series of coordinated multinational operations that represent the largest cybercrime crackdown in African history. Operation Contender 3.0, spanning July and August, focused on romance scams and digital sextortion across 14 African countries. The survey found that 72% of African countries reported the presence of scam centres operating within their borders, concentrated heavily in Southern and West Africa. The INTERPOL data suggests that the continent’s fastest-growing fraud vectors do not require victims to be wealthy or careless, only to be connected.