Artificial intelligence was involved in 55 percent of reported cybercrimes across Africa last year, marking a definitive shift from a supporting tool to the central engine of criminal operations, according to INTERPOL’s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2026, released on 3 August. Financial losses linked to cybercrime more than doubled from $192 million in 2024 to $484 million, driven largely by AI-assisted scams, credential theft and automated social engineering campaigns.

The report, based on a survey of African member countries, describes an industrialised, borderless ecosystem in which AI automates the entire attack lifecycle. Criminals now deploy generative AI for reconnaissance, phishing, extortion and evasion, with deep-fake incidents surging sevenfold between the second and fourth quarters of 2024. A new ransomware strain, Prompt Lock, uses generative AI to create and execute malicious code with minimal human input. Synthetic identities—digital personas blending real and fabricated data—are bypassing biometric verification to open bank accounts, secure loans and register SIM cards under false names.

Mobile money platforms have become the most common vector, with 97 percent of surveyed countries identifying mobile fraud as a major threat. In Kenya, SIM-swap fraud rose 327 percent in 2025, with over 123,000 fraudulent SIM cards issued to hijack phone numbers and drain wallets. Ghana lost an estimated $1.3 million to mobile money fraud in the first quarter of 2025 alone. Across the continent, 72 percent of countries reported the existence of scam centres, concentrated in West and Southern Africa, from which fraudsters coordinate phishing campaigns and business email compromise schemes targeting victims in Europe and North America.

Law enforcement agencies remain ill-equipped to respond. The report found that 92 percent identified a shortage of technical expertise as their biggest barrier to adopting AI-based defences, and only 8 percent of intelligence analysts possess advanced AI knowledge. Fragmented cooperation between banks, telecoms and police creates dangerous blind spots, with financial institutions often unable to block SIM swaps or freeze accounts without court orders that can take weeks.

Seventeen African countries enacted or amended cybercrime legislation in 2025, yet the report stresses that legal frameworks alone cannot close the gap. INTERPOL Director of Cybercrime Neal Jetton said that when countries work together, criminal infrastructure can be identified and dismantled, but the immediate priority remains building the technical capacity and cross-border data-sharing channels that would allow defenders to match the speed of AI-driven attacks.