INTERPOL disrupts $293M fraud ring in Operation First Light 2026 campaign

INTERPOL revealed in a statement that was shared on Thursday, July 9, that a four-month operation spanning 97 countries and territories arrested 5,811 people and froze $293 million in illicit money. 

This sweep also reached some crypto holders as the investigators traced romance-scam profits laundered through cross-chain token swaps. 

The operation, called First Light 2026, ran from January 15 to April 30, according to INTERPOL’s statement. Its focus was social engineering, the practice of exploiting a person’s trust to extract money or account details. That category covers business email compromise, sextortion, romance, impersonation, and investment scams, along with the laundering networks that move the proceeds.

INTERPOL counted more than 142,000 victims over the four months. Alongside the arrests, police blocked 31,014 bank accounts, solved 23,715 cases, identified another 15,606 suspects, and issued 99 notices and diffusions, the agency reported. 

To intercept money before it vanished, authorities leaned on I-GRIP, INTERPOL’s stop-payment tool that can freeze both fiat and virtual asset transfers.

INTERPOL reveals crypto at the center of a Thai case

Crypto was at the crime scene in Thailand, where the police arrested two suspects tied to a laundering operation that fed romance-scam money into several cryptocurrencies, then used cross-chain swaps to break the trail between blockchains. 

One suspect, aged 20, ran a wallet that moved more than $122.5 million in ten months, according to investigators.

Crypto was also involved in other legs of the operation too, one of which was in Palau, where authorities deported 22 people accused of running scam centers out of hotels, using crypto and illegal gambling sites to reach victims abroad. INTERPOL’s financial crime chief sees the pattern as a fixed feature of the trade.

“Criminal syndicates exploit human psychology to manipulate their targets, and no nation can stay safe unless all countries are equipped and committed to jointly fighting back,” said Tomonobu Kaya, director of the INTERPOL Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre, in the statement.

On the African continent, INTERPOL has also been active in dismantling criminal elements engaged in illicit activities that are linked to crypto. It partnered with Binance and AFRIPOL to recover $4.3 million and make over 651 arrests in an operation that spanned late 2025 to January 2026.

Are all the schemes crypto-related, and how do they operate? 

The schemes were of varying kinds, ranging from a fake police station to a blocked wire and not every scheme relied on tokens. Police in Eswatini arrested 82 people and seized 240 electronic devices after breaking up a network that ran illegal gambling, laundering, and impersonation scams. 

The group had built a working replica of a Brazilian police station, with fake uniforms and signage, and posed as federal police on video calls to convince victims they were under investigation and should move money for “safekeeping,” according to INTERPOL. Due to the volume of digital evidence, the agency deployed a support team to help with forensics.

There were cases where authorities were able to stop money mid-flight. Authorities in Singapore and Oman worked together using I-GRIP to block a $6.6 million transfer linked to a business email compromise scam aimed at a Singapore commodity trading firm. 

Another one occurred in Macao, where an anti-fraud outreach campaign found a resident who was being manipulated by scammers posing as public officials. The police stepped in before the victim lost close to $372,000.

INTERPOL’s June 2024 operation, which covered 61 countries, seized $257 million and arrested 3,950 suspects. First Light has run since 2014 and is funded by China’s Ministry of Public Security, with support from regional policing bodies ASEANAPOL, GCCPOL, and Europol.

The investigations are still open as member countries continue to trace assets and identify more suspects, according to INTERPOL.

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