Interpol's Operation Jackal IV has produced 58 arrests and 263 identified suspects after an eight-month hunt, from November 2025 to June 2026, aimed at West African organised crime groups that run romance scams, fake cryptocurrency investments, and business-email compromise. Twenty-two countries on six continents took part. The Lyon release, dated 25 August, is still the fullest public account. The networks named include Black Axe and similar groups that Interpol says account for a large share of cyber-enabled financial fraud worldwide.
South Africa ran the biggest strike: 39 arrests at seven Johannesburg sites tied to a syndicate that targeted retirees in English-speaking countries. Members were assigned jobs as "conversion" or "retention" agents, the same factory floor you see in pig-butchering files. Police seized $2.67 million and blocked 257 bank accounts. Romania dismantled a call centre that promised high returns in stocks or crypto, then diverted deposits to wallets the operators controlled. Eleven people were arrested. Police there estimate 143 million euros stolen and laundered globally, and seized about 330,000 euros in cash and crypto, six properties, and luxury watches.
What an arrest is not
An arrest is not a refund. Coins that have already been layered through mixers, nested exchanges, or cash-out desks still need a wallet map and a court that can freeze what is left. Investigators also flagged a crime-as-a-service layer: 196 people identified for supplying website domains and laundering support to the West African groups. That plumbing is why cloned dashboards and romance-investment chats look professional. It is also why ASIC's FY26 takedown numbers keep rising even as platforms are pulled down. New domains are a service, not a one-off website.
If you sent coins into one of these chats
Keep the transaction hashes, the chat logs, the platform screenshots, and a contemporaneous police report. Do not pay anyone who cold-calls offering to unlock a freeze or file a free Interpol petition for a fee. Legitimate recovery work starts with tracing and pleadings. Swiss-registered practices such as Sarah Legal pair that court process with on-chain work. For the steps, see how crypto recovery works and questions to ask before you hire after a romance-scam loss. Interpol's own notice is the document to check if someone claims to be part of Jackal IV. The government's page, not a Telegram handle, is the source.