West Africa scam crackdown reports 28 arrests, 117 trafficking victims

Authorities reported 28 arrests in Ghana and Nigeria in a crackdown on scam networks operating in West Africa, alongside the identification of 117 people in Ghana as trafficking victims awaiting return to Nigeria. Meta said it removed more than 3.7 million accounts, Pages and Groups from Facebook and Instagram as part of the effort.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.K. National Crime Agency announced the results on Oct. 13, 2026. The NCA hosted an international event in London from Oct. 6 to 9, while enforcement activity took place during that week and in the run-up to it.

Arrests, seizures and victims in Ghana and Nigeria

Authorities reported 19 arrests in Ghana and nine in Nigeria. In Sasaabi, Ghana, authorities seized 303 electronic devices. The NCA reported 53 devices seized in Nigeria: six laptops, 35 phones and 12 routers.

Ghanaian authorities identified 117 trafficking victims who were pending return to Nigeria. The announcements describe the people as awaiting repatriation; they do not report that the return had been completed. The Ghana operation also identified 89 scam victims whose estimated losses totaled about $8.3 million.

The agencies also described separate Ghanaian enforcement actions during the last week of September. Those actions involved six locations, 34 trafficking victims and 129 seized devices. The Justice Department said arrests were made during that earlier activity but did not give a comparable arrest count. Those figures are separate from the October operation’s reported 117 trafficking victims and 303 devices in Sasaabi.

Platform removals and funds identified

Meta said it removed more than 3.7 million accounts, Pages and Groups from Facebook and Instagram, and that a majority appeared to target people in the United States and United Kingdom. The NCA also attributed the removals to Meta. The Justice Department described removals as a figure reported by participating private-sector companies; the announcements do not reconcile company-by-company totals. The 3.7 million figure is a count of platform objects, not a count of individual users or victims.

The Justice Department said private-sector partners shared more than 30 suspected scam-center leads with law enforcement and identified more than $11 million in funds that could potentially be frozen. The announcements do not establish that the money was frozen, seized, forfeited or returned to victims.

Meta separately reported that cryptocurrency company Coinbase identified more than 65 active scam victims and prevented more than $415,000 in potential losses. That is a company-reported estimate of losses prevented, not money recovered after victims had lost it.

U.S. targets and ongoing device examinations

The Justice Department listed law-enforcement impersonation, digital-arrest extortion and cryptocurrency investment fraud among the schemes disrupted. Meta’s account-removal figure indicates that many of the removed objects appeared to target U.S. and U.K. audiences, but authorities have not reported how many people in either country were actually victimized.

The Record reported that forensic examination of seized devices was continuing and that the number of British or American victims targeted remained unknown. The arrests are reported enforcement actions; the announcements do not give individual charges or case-by-case court status, and an arrest is not a conviction.