AI IS GIVING AFRICA’S CYBERCRIMINALS A NEW ADVANTAGE

The scammer on the other side of the screen may no longer need to be particularly good at scamming. Artificial intelligence can help write the convincing message, create a believable identity, generate a fake voice, produce a realistic image and even make a fraudulent operation easier to run at scale.

That is the warning emerging from INTERPOL's latest assessment of cybercrime in Africa, which shows how quickly artificial intelligence is becoming part of the continent's digital crime landscape.

According to the assessment, AI is now linked to 55 per cent of reported cybercrime across Africa, while reported financial losses from cybercrime have risen from $192 million in 2024 to $484 million in 2025.

The numbers point to a changing kind of threat. Cybercrime is no longer simply about an individual sending a suspicious email or attempting to steal a password. Criminal networks are increasingly using technology to industrialise fraud, allowing them to target more people, move faster and make their schemes harder to identify.

Phishing remains one of the major threats, but artificial intelligence is making it more convincing. A scam email riddled with spelling mistakes may once have been easy to spot. Today, criminals can use AI to produce polished messages that imitate the language, tone and communication style of legitimate organisations.

The same technology is being used in business email compromise, where criminals impersonate executives or trusted contacts to persuade victims to transfer money or disclose sensitive information.

Deepfakes are adding another layer to the problem.

Artificial intelligence can generate convincing images, audio and video that make it possible to impersonate real people. In the wrong hands, a familiar face or voice can become part of a fraud attempt before the real person even knows their identity is being used.

INTERPOL has also identified digital sextortion and online harassment as persistent threats, with synthetic media making these schemes increasingly difficult for victims and investigators to navigate.

The problem is not confined to individuals.

Financial institutions, telecommunications companies and government agencies are all operating inside an increasingly connected digital environment, creating more opportunities for criminals to exploit gaps between systems.

INTERPOL has warned that limited real-time information sharing between financial institutions, telecom operators and law-enforcement agencies remains a major weakness. Criminal networks can operate across borders while investigations and regulatory responses are often restricted by national boundaries.

The report says 72 per cent of surveyed African countries reported the presence of scam centres, with Southern and West Africa recording some of the highest concentrations.

That matters for Nigeria.

The country has rapidly embraced digital banking, fintech platforms, mobile payments and online commerce. Those developments have made financial services more accessible, but they have also created a much larger digital surface for criminals to target.

Nigeria has already seen how quickly financial fraud can evolve.

A separate report cited by Nairametrics found that reported digital-payment fraud losses in Nigeria fell by more than half in 2025, from ₦52.26 billion in 2024 to ₦25.85 billion. But the same assessment noted that losses had still increased substantially compared with 2020, even as the number of reported cases declined.

That distinction is important.

Fewer reported cases do not necessarily mean criminals are becoming less effective.

They may simply be becoming more targeted.

AI could make that targeting even more efficient by allowing criminals to personalise messages, create fake identities and automate parts of their operations at a scale that would previously have required large teams.

But the technology is not only working for criminals.

INTERPOL says coordinated operations across Africa have already demonstrated the value of cross-border cooperation. Recent operations have resulted in more than 1,500 arrests, the seizure of hundreds of devices and the recovery of more than $100 million linked to cybercrime.

The challenge now is keeping that response ahead of the technology.

For individuals, the basic rules remain important: do not transfer money simply because a message looks convincing, verify unexpected requests through another channel, be careful with links and attachments, and do not assume that a familiar face or voice on a screen is proof of identity.

For businesses and financial institutions, the challenge is bigger.

Fraud detection systems must evolve alongside the tools being used to defeat them, while banks, telecom operators, technology companies and law-enforcement agencies need faster ways to share information about emerging threats.

Artificial intelligence has not invented phishing, fraud or impersonation.

It has simply given criminals a more powerful way to do them.

And that may be the most important part of INTERPOL's warning.

The next cyber scam may not look suspicious. It may sound like someone you know, arrive in perfect English and appear to come from exactly the person you trust.

In a digital world where seeing is no longer always believing, a little verification could save a lot of money.