A global anti-fraud operation involving 97 countries and territories has resulted in the arrest of 5,811 individuals and the seizure of $293 million in illicit assets. Coordinated by INTERPOL, Operation First Light 2026 took place from January 1 to April 30, 2026, and focused on combating social engineering scams and related money laundering activities.
Social engineering encompasses techniques that manipulate a person's trust to acquire money or confidential information. This type of fraud can involve business email compromise, extortion, as well as romance scams, impersonation, or investment fraud.
After an initial period of intelligence collection and exchange, the participating countries engaged in over three months of operational activities. This included proactive measures against high-value targets, such as raiding identified premises, blocking or freezing bank accounts and virtual wallets, requesting INTERPOL Notices and diffusions, and proactively utilizing INTERPOL’s Global Rapid Intervention of Payment (I-GRIP). I-GRIP is a stop payment mechanism that facilitates the swift blocking of illicit financial flows involving both fiat and virtual assets.
Operation First Light 2026 identified over 142,000 victims worldwide, highlighting how social engineering scams and fraud have escalated into major transnational threats affecting individuals, businesses, and governments. 152,808 cases analyzed; 31,014 bank accounts blocked; 23,715 cases solved; 15,606 suspects identified; 99 notices and diffusions issued.
Tomonobu Kaya, the Director of the Interpol Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre, emphasizes that social engineering scams remain a serious threat to our society. Criminal organizations manipulate human psychology to target their victims, and no nation can be truly safe unless all countries are prepared and dedicated to working together to combat this issue.
Operation First Light is funded by China’s Ministry of Public Security and is supported by the collaboration of three regional policing bodies: ASENAPOL, GCCPOL, and Europol. The operation includes participation from 97 countries, which consist of Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, France, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Sudan, Thailand, the UAE, the United Kingdom, the United States, Vietnam, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, among others.