Employing AI is allowing threat actors to conduct attacks faster, make them more scalable, and increasingly are difficult for victims and platforms to detect, according to INTERPOL’s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026.
With more than 1.1 billion mobile subscribers recorded in 2025, Africa’s digital transformation is expanding rapidly. However, cybercrime legislation is fragmented and AI readiness in law enforcement agencies remains alarmingly low.
The report draws on survey data from 36 African member countries and highlights a defining shift: cyber-criminality has evolved from isolated incidents into an industrialized, borderless ecosystem.
East Africa emerged as a hub of mobile money fraud and infrastructure-targeted ransomware, according to the report. Business email compromise and romance scams targetingboth corporate and individual victims were prolific in Central and West Africa.
Southern Africa’s ultra-high connectivity makes it a magnet for global threat actors seeking maximum disruption.
Losses Doubled
Since 2024, cybercrime-related losses have more than doubled, from $192 million to $ 484 million, driven primarily by AI-facilitated scams, credential harvesting, and automated social engineering campaigns.
According to the report, in 2025, online scams continued to be the top type of cybercrime, with attackers leveraging mobile money platforms, social media and AI to reach their targets.
Notably, 72 percent of surveyed countries reported the presence of scam centers, with the highest concentration in Southern and West Africa.
Digital sextortion and online harassment, often facilitated by AI-generated deepfakes and synthetic media, remained pervasive, with some 600,000 sextortion detections recorded by TrendAI, one of several partners working with Interpol.
Similarly, the sophistication of Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes increased dramatically, with AI used to generate highly convincing email correspondence, with Africa-based threat actors targeting victims in Europe and North America using infrastructure located across multiple jurisdictions.
The report reveals the absence of real-time, inter-agency data sharing between banks, telecoms and law enforcement creates a dangerous blind spot in efforts to combat financial fraud.
This vulnerability is being exploited by criminals who have moved beyond simply stealing existing credentials to creating entirely synthetic identities.
“Cybercrime has emerged as one of the most significant criminal threats to the region,” said Neal Jetton, director of Interpol’s Cybercrime unit. “AI is automating every stage of a cyberattack from reconnaissance and phishing to extortion and evasion.
“However, we see that when countries work together, cybercriminal infrastructure can end up identified, disrupted and dismantled.”
Click here to view Interpol’s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026.