Operation Catalyst was coordinated by Interpol and Afripol between July and September 2025 in Angola, Cameroon, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, and South Sudan and aimed to identify and disrupt financial flows and schemes found to have connections to terrorism financing and its support networks.

Of the 83 arrests, 21 were for terrorism-related crimes, 28 were for financial fraud and money laundering, 16 were linked to cyber-enabled scams and a further 18 were related to the illicit use of virtual assets.

Over the two-month operation, authorities across participating countries screened more than 15 000 persons of interest and entities, uncovering around $260 million in both fiat and virtual currencies potentially linked to terrorism-related activities. Approximately $600 000 has already been seized, with additional investigations underway to trace and recover further assets, Interpol said in a statement on 22 October.

Tackling terrorist financing is particularly complex for law enforcement, as it often cuts across diverse criminal activities, including fraud, kidnapping for ransom, illicit trade, online scams, Ponzi schemes and the misuse of virtual assets. These illegal activities can be linked to terrorism financing directly—when terrorist groups receive funds from such schemes—or indirectly, through money laundering or intermediary networks. These connections highlight how different forms of crime are increasingly intertwined, underscoring the need for a united and coordinated response, Interpol explained.

To tackle this multifaceted threat, participating countries shared intelligence on significant targets at the pre-operation phase. This was supplemented by strategic cyber intelligence from Interpol and Afripol with key data from private-sector entities Binance, Moody’s and Uppsala Security.

In one significant case from Angola, 25 individuals of multiple nationalities were detained following investigations into informal value transfer systems that were identified as connected to potential terrorist financing and money laundering. The operation included the inspection of 30 commercial establishments, where police seized approximately $588 000, 100 mobile phones and 40 computers. Sixty bank accounts were also frozen.

In Kenya, a suspected money laundering operation using a virtual asset service provider was identified as having potential links to terrorism financing. The scheme, worth approximately $430 000, involved 12 people, two of whom have so far been arrested. In a separate case in Kenya, two individuals were arrested for the online recruitment of young people from East and North Africa into terrorist groups. The funds used for the recruitment and radicalization were traced through a cryptocurrency trading platform, back to individuals in Tanzania.

In Nigeria, the operation led to the arrest of 11 suspected terrorists, including high-level members of several terrorist groups.

One notable transnational case involved a massive cryptocurrency-based Ponzi scheme, which claimed to be a legitimate online trading platform, affected at least 17 countries around the word, including Cameroon, Kenya, and Nigeria. The scheme accumulated more than 100 000 victims around the world, with an estimated loss to victims of $562 million. The investigations related to Operation Catalyst found that several large-valued wallets were potentially linked to terrorism financing activities. The case is still ongoing, with investigations currently in progress.

As part of Operation Catalyst, a Red Notice was also issued for an individual thought to be behind a sophisticated cryptocurrency scheme which scammed victims of approximately $5 million. The scam redirected funds to multiple addresses and centralized exchange platforms to obscure the trail and convert the assets into fiat currency. Investigators believe the case exhibits several traits consistent with known terrorist financing methodologies.

“Operation Catalyst is the first time financial crime, cybercrime and counter-terrorism units from multiple African countries have joined forces with Interpol and Afripol to target the financing of terrorism. By sharing intelligence, expertise and resources, we can more effectively identify and disrupt the financial flows that support terrorist activities to stay one step ahead of these threats and keep our communities safe,” said Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza.

“The success of Operation Catalyst lies in the synergy and convergence of efforts among national units combating financial crime, cybercrime, and terrorism. This joint endeavour, dedicated to disrupting the financing of terrorism across the African continent, illustrates how coordinated action between Member States, facilitated by Afripol and Interpol, can effectively address complex and evolving security threats. Such cooperation stands as tangible proof that Africa’s law-enforcement community, when united, offers a decisive and appropriate response in the pursuit of a secure and stable Africa,” said Ambassador Jalel Chelba, Afripol’s Executive Director.

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Codenamed Serengeti, the operation targeted criminals involved in ransomware, business email compromise (BEC), digital extortion and online scams – all identified as prominent threats in the 2024 Africa Cyber Threat Assessment Report.

Over 35 000 victims were identified during the operation with cases linked to $193 million in financial losses worldwide.

Information on ongoing case provided by participating countries saw Interpol produce 65 cyber analytical reports. These ensured actions on the ground were intelligence-led and focused on the most significant people involved, Interpol said in a statement on 26 November.

Private sector partners, including Internet Service Providers (ISPs), were vital in sharing intelligence, supporting analysis and disrupting criminal activities. They provided on-site support and offered round-the-clock remote assistance to patch vulnerabilities and secure critical infrastructure for the participating member countries.

“From multi-level marketing scams to credit card fraud on an industrial scale, the increasing volume and sophistication of cybercrime attacks is a serious concern,” Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza, is reported as saying in the statement.

“Operation Serengeti shows what we can achieve by working together and these arrests alone will save countless potential future victims from real personal and financial pain. We know that this is just the tip of the iceberg, which is why we will continue targeting these criminal groups worldwide.”

In Kenya, officers cracked an online credit card fraud case linked to losses of $8.6 million. The funds, stolen through fraudulent scripts run after altering the banking system’s security protocol, were redistributed by the group via SWIFT to companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Nigeria and China and subsequently, to digital asset institutions offering trading and financial services regulated in multiple jurisdictions. Nearly two dozen arrests have been made so far.

Eight people, including five Chinese, were arrested in Senegal for a $6 million online Ponzi scheme affecting 1 811 victims. An apartment search apartment led to over 900 SIM cards, $11 000 in cash, phones, laptops and copies of victim ID cards.

Nigerian authorities arrested a man accused of running online investment scams. He is believed to have made upwards of $300 000 by luring victims through messaging platforms with false promises of cryptocurrency returns.

In Cameroon, authorities arrested a group suspected of trafficking victims from seven countries to run a multi-level marketing scam. After paying a “membership fee”, victims were promised employment or training. Once in Cameroon, they were held captive and obliged to lure others into the scheme to gain their freedom. Initial estimates show the group pocketed at least $150 000 in fees.

Angolan investigators dismantled an international criminal group running a virtual casino in Luanda. The group, primarily targeting Brazilian and Nigerian gamblers, defrauded hundreds through its online platform, offering a percentage of winnings to members who recruited new subscribers. A hundred and fifty arrests were made with officers seizing 200 computers and 100 mobile phones.

Afripol is the African Union (AU) mechanism for continental police co-operation.

Participating countries were Algeria, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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Kamau Wairuri, who has studied the policing of protests in Kenya, explains what contributes to the violence often witnessed during public demonstrations.

What contributes to police violence during protests in Kenya?

The use of excessive force is ingrained in the culture of the Kenyan state police. The police treat citizens with suspicion. Everyone, especially the poor and marginalised, is seen as a potential criminal.

Many Kenyans have been killed or maimed by police officers in efforts to disperse public assemblies since colonial times and in the course of the country’s political history. In 1922, for instance, the police killed more than 100 people who were protesting the arrest of African nationalist Harry Thuku in Nairobi. Recent examples abound.

The most crucial factor that explains this persistent use of force in the dispersal of public assemblies in Kenya is that the police have historically served political regimes rather than the citizens. I have explored this in my research, which analysed the policing of protests in Kenya from 1990 to 2010.

My study showed how regimes have used the police to repress opposition and sustain themselves in power. Order, which the police are charged with maintaining, is whatever the regime of the day defines it to be. Hence, as I argue, the actions and words of political leaders are taken as a signal of the kind of police actions that are expected and may be rewarded by an executive arm of the government that wields immense power.

The policing of protests is often anchored in the profiling of protesters, both by the police and by politicians. Protesters are often termed “looters”, “thugs” and “goons”, thus labelled as criminals who deserve to be dealt with ruthlessly. The issue of profiling was flagged by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority in a report following 2016 protests seeking to disband the country’s electoral commission.

The police often act with impunity because they are protected by the ruling elite. Not only are officers rarely held to account for the use of force in the dispersal of protesters, they are often congratulated for doing so. In his first statements in response to the current anti-tax protests, President William Ruto thanked police officers “for applying themselves to the best of their abilities in the defence of Kenya and its people”. He did not mention the brutal killing of some of the protesters, which was broadcast live on national television.

These failures to hold officers to account build citizen distrust in the police.

What laws regulate the use of force by the police?

Kenya’s constitution guarantees the right to protest. Since this right is not unlimited, Kenyan laws empower the police to ensure that protests are carried out in a lawful and peaceful manner. The law requires protest organisers to inform the police of their planned demonstrations.

In turn, police actions are guided by various legal instruments. The National Police Service Act of 2011 provides overall guidance on the use of force by police officers. The Public Order Act of 2012 empowers officers to disperse a public assembly where there is a clear or imminent danger of a breach of peace. The Service Standing Orders provide for the lawful use of force to suppress or disperse a riotous mob.

The country’s legal framework seeks to restrict the use of force during protests to exceptional circumstances.

What reforms have been proposed or made to mitigate police violence?

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority made important recommendations on improving the policing of public assemblies in line with the constitution.

The authority noted the absence of a policy with guidelines on public order management. This would guide police conduct during protests. This policy would address matters like the training of police officers on public order management.

The policy would also guide intelligence gathering on protests. Infiltration of demonstrations by hired disruptors or criminal elements has been alleged in the current anti-tax protests.

The policy would require police officers to wear uniforms and badges so that they are identifiable, provide medical support for the injured, and operate within the law as they work.

Such a policy has yet to be adopted. As a result, the policing of protests continues to be marked by poor planning and coordination, with officers who are not properly trained, equipped or briefed before entering tense situations.

This not only makes police officers themselves unsafe, but means violence is the only strategy they can use. It’s little wonder that the policing of protests in Kenya continues to be marked by human rights abuses.

Kenya can also draw on international approaches. The most progressive one is the negotiated management model. It emphasises people’s right to protest and seeks constructive relationships between the police and protesters. It has been used in developed countries, such as the US and the UK.

An evaluation of an attempt to use this approach in Kenya found that it failed because police weren’t willing to engage protesters in constructive ways.

Written by Kamau Wairuri, Lecturer in criminology, Edinburgh Napier University.

Republished with permission from The Conversation. The original article can be found here.

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Kenya’s police are being criticised for their violent response to protests over the past week against government proposals to raise US$2.7 billion in additional taxes.

Hundreds of thousands of people, across 35 of Kenya’s 37 counties, poured out onto the streets in opposition to the tax hikes. The police have reacted with force, using live bullets and tear gas. At least five people are known to have been killed and hundreds have been injured.

The reaction by the police force didn’t come as a surprise. Kenya has a long history of policing with excessive force, often resulting in unnecessary deaths. And this time round, Kenyans were prepared. Posters outlining codes of conduct show guidelines on how to deal with harassment, teargas and medical emergencies.

We’ve published several articles that put these recent events into context.

Governance analyst Douglas Lucas Kivoi explains that the brutality exhibited by Kenya’s police force is a result of a number of factors. These include its beginnings under British colonial rule (the police weren’t there to serve the interests of the people, they were there to support the administration), poor recruitment policies, corruption and a lack of accountability for their actions – police will continue to operate with violence because they know they will get away with it.

Read more: Why violence is a hallmark of Kenyan policing. And what needs to change

Given this history, Kenyans don’t trust the police. Conflict researchers Kristine Höglund and Emma Elfversson explain that witnessing or experiencing unfair treatment undermines trust in Kenya’s police.

They write that the levels of mistrust are higher in urban settings than rural because police-citizen interactions are more frequent and visible and because of extrajudicial killings. Low levels of trust in a police force influence police effectiveness and public perceptions of safety.

Read more: Urban Kenyans mistrust police even more than rural residents do: study sets out why it matters

Criminologist Kamau Wairuri provides deeper insights into the way this distrust manifests. Instead of turning to the police for help, Kenyans often rely on private security. In poor neighbourhoods, people sometimes turn to community vigilantism – they take security matters into their own hands.

The turn to vigilantism means that the police can’t bring perpetrators of crimes to justice. Wairuri explains that the police blame the community for not providing them with information that would help them catch criminals. And many criminal cases in Kenya fail because of police failure to provide adequate evidence in court.

Read more: Many Kenyans have embraced vigilante cops – an ineffective police force is to blame

Of course, not all citizen experiences of the police are about violence. There’s corruption and bribery, too. Citizens complain about how the police treat them like ATMs – a source of cash.

One place where citizens are most vulnerable are traffic police checkpoints, which liberally dot Kenya’s highways – but they’re not just about keeping road users safe. Governance specialist Gedion Onyango describes the “art of bribery” that has been created by corrupt traffic officers. Collected bribes move along the hierarchy to high-ranking beneficiaries at police headquarters.

Read more: The art of bribery: a closeup look at how traffic officers operate on Kenya’s roads

Reform or abolish?

The government is aware of these issues and has been trying to build a more legitimate and effective police force.

Extensive attempts to reform the police began in earnest in 2008 when the police were found to be complicit in post-election violence. Reforms were codified into the 2010 constitution and new police legislation in 2011. These processes established national policies for community policing and an independent agency to improve civilian oversight.

But the reforms have largely failed. Policing expert Tessa Diphoorn reveals that police abuse has shown a “significant increase” over the past six years, rather than a decline. The Kenyan police remain repressive and unaccountable.

Why are the reforms not working? Through her research, Diphoorn found that various forms of misconduct were normalised as a part of everyday police work. Also, many officers were too scared to speak out against their colleagues. It could result in the denial of promotions or punishment – like being transferred to a hardship area. She also found that police officers sometimes covered for each other when involved in crime.

Read more: Why decades of Kenya police reforms have not yielded change

Having conducted hundreds of interviews and various studies, anthropologists Wangui Kimari and Zoltán Glück argue that the police should be abolished altogether. They found that Kenya’s police made Nairobi residents feel less safe and that the public didn’t depend on the police for safety.

Read more: Kenya’s police are violent, unaccountable and make most citizens feel less safe – should they be abolished?

It’s hard to imagine society without a police force. So what exactly would the abolition of the police force look like? Kimari and Glück explain that “police abolition” would mean dismantling ineffective and repressive institutions, replacing them with systems of actual safety.

Written by Moina Spooner, Assistant Editor, The Conversation.

Republished with permission from The Conversation. The original article can be found here.

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