West African cybercrime operation taken down by Interpol

Interpol has announced the arrest of eight individuals suspected to be part of a West African cybercrime operation behind a massive phishing campaign against Swiss citizens that resulted in more than $1.4 million in financial losses, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

Attacks part of the scheme — which were noted by Swiss authorities to have exceeded 260 between August 2023 and April 2024 — involved the suspects leveraging QR codes that redirected to payment platform-spoofing websites, which sought the targets' login details and card numbers, according to Interpol, which was able to apprehend the primary suspect who admitted earning more than $1.9 million from the scam. Such a development comes days after the U.S. sentenced UK and Nigerian dual citizen John Edwards to seven years imprisonment due to his involvement in a large-scale business email compromise scheme that led to the theft of over $1.9 million from a North Carolina university and attempted exfiltration of over $3 million from Texas-based organizations.