LYON, France – A global anti-fraud operation involving 97 countries and territories has led to the arrest of 5,811 individuals and the interception of USD 293 million in illicit assets.
Operation First Light 2026 (15 Jan 2026 – 30 April 2026), coordinated by INTERPOL, focused on combatting social engineering scams and associated money laundering activities.
Social engineering is a broad term that refers to techniques that exploit a person’s trust to obtain money or confidential information. This type of fraud can include business email compromise, sextortion, as well as romance, impersonation or investment scams.
After an initial period of intelligence collection and exchange, participating countries took part in more than three months of operational activities. This included pro-active action against high-value targets, raiding identified premises, blocking or freezing bank accounts and virtual wallets, requesting INTERPOL Notices and Diffusions and proactively utilizing INTERPOL’s Global Rapid Intervention of Payments (I-GRIP), a stop-payment mechanism that facilitates the swift blocking of illicit financial flows of both fiat and virtual assets.
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