A major international operation coordinated by Interpol has taken down tens of thousands of malicious IP addresses and servers. Law enforcement from 72 countries and territories took part in Operation Synergia III, which also saw 94 individuals arrested and a further 110 still under investigation. More than 200 devices were seized during the operation, which targeted organised cybercriminal gangs. Interpol said that the cross-border collaboration saw data used to provide actionable intelligence to assist police forces across the world, including the UK.
The operation, as the name suggests, is the third in a series of Interpol campaigns. The latest took place from July last year up to the end of January 2026 and saw the largest number of arrests and IP takedowns. The first Synergia operation started in late 2023 and targeted command and control (C2) servers used to manage malware-infected devices or ‘bots’. Synergia II took place in 2024 and resulted in at least 40 arrests.
While the Synergia III operation incorporated law enforcement agencies from dozens of countries and multiple continents, Interpol highlighted a few key cases to highlight the breadth of criminal activity involved.
International takedowns included fake gambling sites and gangs specialising in social media scams
In the autonomous region of Macau in China, more than 33,000 phishing and fraudulent websites were identified. Macau is renowned for its gambling industry and many of the sites were related to fake casinos. Others purported to be genuine bank, governmental and payment service sites. Victims were defrauded by transferring money to accounts via fraudulent sites, or had personal data and credit card details stolen.
Police in Bangladesh arrested 40 people and seized 134 devices believed to be related to a wide range of cybercrime activities, including job and loan scams, identify theft and credit card fraud. In Togo in Western Africa, 10 people were arrested on suspicion of running a fraud ring that involved activities including hacking social media accounts, romance scams and ‘sextortion’.
Neal Jetton, Interpol’s director of the Cybercrime Directorate, said: “Cybercrime in 2026 is more sophisticated and destructive than ever before, but Operation Synergia III stands as a powerful testament to what global cooperation can achieve.”
Robert McArdle, director of cybercrime research at Trend Micro’s TrendAI, said: “Behind every malicious server or phishing kit sits a wider criminal ecosystem that needs to be mapped and understood before arrests become possible.”
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