Bank fraud and credit card fraud are the most common cyber threats to online scams according to Interpol.

Police and investigators fear that organized gangs of fraudsters are growing across sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, senior police officials said the growth will have a direct impact on the rest of the world where many victims of “extremely lucrative” fraud live.

The economic consequences of a series of major challenges have weakened police forces and criminal justice systems. As a result, experts attribute the rise of cybercrime in Africa to the rapid growth in Internet use at one time. For Professor Landry Signé, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution and author of a recent report on the problem, “the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated digitization around the world, but as life has increasingly changed online, cybercriminals have exploited the opportunity to attack vital digital infrastructures.” Interpol, for its part, thinks of online scams such as bank and card fraud. Credit threats like the cyber threat are the most widespread and the most urgent in Africa.