Interpol has announced the results of Operation First Light 2026, a coordinated international crackdown on social engineering fraud and associated money laundering that produced more than 5 800 arrests, the recovery of over 293 million US dollars and the identification of more than 142 000 victims across 97 countries.

The operation, conducted between 15 January and 30 April 2026, targeted criminal networks behind business email compromise, investment scams, sextortion and romance fraud. Participating authorities analysed 152 808 cases and resolved 23 715 of them, blocked 31 014 bank accounts, identified 15 606 suspects and issued 99 Interpol Notices and Diffusions. Many of the account freezes relied on I-GRIP, Interpol’s stop-payment mechanism designed to interrupt flows of both conventional funds and virtual assets.

Several individual cases illustrate the scale and sophistication involved. In Thailand, a 20-year-old suspect was found to have moved more than 122,5 million US dollars through a cryptocurrency wallet over ten months, laundering proceeds from romance scam victims; a separate Thai case exposed a network using cross-chain token swaps to obscure the money trail. Authorities in Singapore and Oman deployed I-GRIP to block 6,6 million US dollars in illicit transfers linked to a business email compromise scheme targeting a Singapore-based commodity trading firm. In Macao, police intervened before a victim manipulated by fraudsters impersonating public officials could transfer nearly 372 000 US dollars. Palau deported 22 individuals connected to two scam centres operating out of hotels, while Eswatini saw 82 arrests and the seizure of 240 electronic devices.

Interpol’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre stressed that no country can address cyber-enabled financial crime in isolation, pointing to coordinated international strategy as the essential countermeasure.