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Interpol announced on August 25 that an eight-month operation against West African organized crime networks led to 58 arrests and identified 263 suspects across 22 countries. The operation, known as Jackal IV, ran from November 2025 to June 2026 and focused on money laundering tied to groups such as Black Axe, a Nigerian-led syndicate that law enforcement has pursued for years.
Most of the arrests came in South Africa, where police raided seven sites in Johannesburg linked to a syndicate that targeted retirees in English-speaking countries with romance and investment scams. Officers made 39 arrests, seized about $2.67 million, and blocked 257 bank accounts. In Romania, authorities broke up a call-center investment scam and arrested 11 people, uncovering about $166 million in stolen and laundered funds held in electronic wallets.
Investigators in Argentina identified 196 people tied to a crime-as-a-service network that allegedly supplied website domains and laundering support to West African groups, and arrested 17. In Italy, police identified one launderer whose network used shell companies and remittance services; a single account moved roughly $736,000 through 560 transactions. “By following illicit financial flows across borders, we are attacking the very lifeblood of organized crime,” said Tomonobu Kaya, director of Interpol’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre.
Interpol said the networks generate a large share of the world’s cyber-enabled financial fraud through romance, cryptocurrency, and business email compromise scams. Officials also flagged a rise in sextortion aimed at minors as young as 14, in which offenders coax teenagers into sharing explicit images and then demand payment. The sweep extends earlier Jackal operations. A 2024 leg produced more than 300 arrests, and European police arrested Black Axe members in Spain in January and in Switzerland and Germany in April.
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