Operation Serengeti, a joint operation with Afripol, the African Union’s police agency, ran from September 2 to October 31 in 19 African countries and targeted crim­inals behind ransomware, business email compromise, digital extortion and online scams, the agency said in a statement.

“From multi-level marketing scams to credit card fraud on an in­dustrial scale, the increasing volume and sophistication of cybercrime attacks is of serious concern,” said Valdecy Urquiza, the Secretary Gen­eral of Interpol.

Interpol pinpointed 35,000 vic­tims, with cases linked to nearly $193 million in financial losses worldwide, stating that local police authorities and private sector partners, including internet service providers, played a key role in the operation.

Jalel Chelba, Afripol’s executive director, said in the statement: “Through Serengeti, Afripol has significantly enhanced support for law enforcement in African Union Member States.”

Serengeti’s results were a “drastic increase” compared to operations in Africa in previous years, Enrique Hernandez Gonzalez, Interpol’s Assistant Director of Cybercrime Operations, told The Associated Press.

Interpol’s previous cybercrime operations in Africa had only led to 25 arrests in the last two years.

“Significant progress has been made, with participating countries enhancing their ability to work with intelligence and produce meaningful results,” Gonzalez said.

In Kenya, the police made nearly two dozen arrests in an online credit card fraud case linked to losses of $8.6 million. In the West African country of Senegal, officers arrested eight people, including five Chinese nationals, for a $6 million online Ponzi scheme.

Chelba said Afripol’s focus now includes emerging threats like Artifi­cial Intelligence-driven malware and advanced cyberattack techniques.

Other dismantled networks included a group in Cameroon suspected of using a multi-level marketing scam for human traf­ficking, an international criminal group in Angola running an illegal virtual casino and a cryptocurrency investment scam in Nigeria, the agency said.

Interpol, which has 196 member countries and celebrated its centen­nial last year, works to help national police forces communicate with each other and track suspects and criminals in fields like counterterror­ism, financial crime, child pornog­raphy, cybercrime and organized crime.

The world’s biggest — if not best-funded — police organization has been grappling with new chal­lenges including a growing caseload of cybercrime and child sex abuse, and increasing divisions among its member countries.

Interpol had a total budget of about 176 million euros (about $188 million) last year, compared to more than 200 million euros at the European Union’s police agency, Europol, and some $11 billion at the FBI in the United States..