Ghana, Nigeria cyber-fraud ring busted in $400,000 fast-food scam
By DL News
Published
1 min read
The network was exposed during Operation Sentinel, a regional cybercrime crackdown targeting business email compromise, digital extortion and ransomware schemes identified in INTERPOL’s 2025 Africa Cyber Threat Assessment as fast-escalating...
Ghanaian security agencies have broken up a major cyber-fraud syndicate operating between Ghana and Nigeria that is alleged to have defrauded more than 200 people of over $400,000, in a continent-wide sweep coordinated by INTERPOL.
The network was exposed during Operation Sentinel, a regional cybercrime crackdown targeting business email compromise, digital extortion and ransomware schemes identified in INTERPOL’s 2025 Africa Cyber Threat Assessment as fast-escalating risks.
According to investigators, the group built slick, professional-looking websites and mobile apps mimicking popular fast-food chains. Customers placed and paid for orders online, but the food never arrived.
INTERPOL said 10 suspects were arrested in Ghana during coordinated raids, with officers seizing more than 100 digital devices and dismantling 30 fraudulent servers linked to the operation.
The Ghana–Nigeria syndicate was one of several high-impact cases uncovered under Operation Sentinel, which led to 574 arrests across Africa, the removal of more than 6,000 malicious links and the decryption of six ransomware variants.
The operation highlighted how fraudsters are increasingly exploiting public trust in familiar consumer brands to run large-scale, cross-border scams that are harder to detect and disrupt.
Neal Jetton, INTERPOL’s Director of Cybercrime, said the results underlined the importance of coordinated enforcement.
INTERPOL said collaboration with private sector organisations was central to the takedown, helping investigators trace IP addresses, disrupt the criminal hosting infrastructure and move to freeze illicit funds tied to the scams.
Operation Sentinel was carried out under the African Joint Operation against Cybercrime, with support from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, as well as the European Union and the Council of Europe through the GLACY-e project.
The arrests come against a backdrop of rising digital crime across the continent, with INTERPOL reporting that around two-thirds of African countries now rate cybercrime as accounting for a medium to high share of overall criminal activity.
