INTERPOL: AI powers 55% of African cybercrimes, losses $484 million in 2025
INTERPOL's African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026 found that AI enables 55% of reported cybercrimes across Africa, with financial losses rising from $192 million in 2024 to $484 million in 2025. The report identifies ransomware, AI-powered business email compromise, deepfake sextortion, and industrial-scale online scams as major threats, with 72% of surveyed African countries reporting the existence of organised scam centres.
What happened
INTERPOL released its African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026 on 3 August 2026, finding that 55 per cent of reported cybercrimes across Africa are now AI-enabled. The report, based on survey responses from 36 African member countries, identifies ransomware, business email compromise (BEC), online scams and digital sextortion as major cyber threats.
Criminals are using AI to create highly convincing emails impersonating company executives for BEC attacks, with one example involving a Senegal-based operation that attempted to fraudulently divert $7.9 million from a petroleum company. Attackers are also using deepfake technology to generate fake intimate images to facilitate digital sextortion, with Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali experiencing a rise in such attacks.
The report notes that cybercrime has evolved into an industrialised, borderless ecosystem, with 72 per cent of surveyed countries reporting the existence of organised scam centres, many linked to transnational organised crime. Criminals are increasingly using AI to create synthetic identities by combining genuine personal information with fabricated details to bypass security systems.
Reported impact
Cybercrime-related financial losses across the continent have more than doubled since 2024, rising from $192 million to $484 million in 2025, driven largely by AI-assisted scams, credential theft and automated social engineering campaigns. Mobile money fraud remains the continent's most common online scam, with 97 per cent of responding countries identifying it as a major threat.
Ransomware attacks have targeted critical infrastructure and essential public services, including the South African Weather Service, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company and Namibia's telecommunications sector. South Africa accounted for 92 per cent of all ransomware detections recorded in Africa in 2025, while 70 per cent of detected BEC incidents originated from South Africa and 29 per cent from Nigeria.
Index analysis
The report identifies AI as a major enabler of cybercrime, making attacks "faster, more scalable, and increasingly difficult for victims and platforms to detect." Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated, combining emerging technologies with organised criminal networks to target governments, businesses, financial institutions and critical infrastructure.
Governance controls
INTERPOL warned that 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.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.