My favorite go-to-source (ChatGPT!) told me that “In Greek mythology, the Hydra was a serpent-like monster with multiple heads, usually depicted with nine heads, although some variations mention a larger number.  One of the Hydra's most notable characteristics was that it could regrow its heads. In some versions of the myth, two heads would grow back for every one that was cut off. This made the creature virtually invincible and a challenge for any hero who tried to defeat it.”

The world of cybercrime is not different – it hides, it grows, and seems to be guarded by poisonous agenda’s and objectives.  But perhaps a multinational effort can slay it or slow it down with a (cyber) Herculean effort. 

Operation First Light 2022

In May 2022, a teenage Chinese national in Singapore was forced to raise nearly $1.6 million from his parents by faking his own kidnapping (“virtual kidnapping”) in order to pay off scammers. The scam operatives, posing as police officers from China, had threatened to implicate the teenager in a cooked-up scam if he failed to pay them money.[1] Hoaxed by the criminal gang, the boy sent videos of himself with fake wounds to his parents. However, intelligence gathered as part of the Operation First Light 2022 helped Singapore police rescue the boy in time. Nearly 2,000 fraudsters were arrested during the two-month-long Interpol operation, involving law enforcement bodies from 76 nations. In another notable success, a Chinese national wanted in a $36 million Ponzi scheme in his home country was arrested in Papua New Guinea and deported to China via Singapore.[2] Besides, up to 4,000 bank accounts were frozen and ill-gotten funds worth $50 million seized in this concerted attempt by worldwide police organizations to smash social engineering fraud. Raids were carried out at 1,770 establishments.

Operation Jackal

Nigeria’s Black Axe[3] is a dreaded mafia group that enjoys a cult-like status, and the tentacles of its operations spread across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. The criminal organization, which emerged in the late ’70s, has been engaging in large-scale Internet fraud. At least since 2009, organized online scams (e.g., inheritance, real estate, and business email scams) have become the crime syndicate’s financial mainstay. Black Axe’s police record includes an attempt to loot around $1 million from Ireland’s welfare fund in 2021 during the pandemic. Between September 26 and 30, 2022, Interpol swooped down on the gang, taking 75 suspects into custody. Limousines, luxury goods, thousands of dollars in cash, and nearly 12,000 mobile SIM cards were seized in raids covering 49 properties associated with the cybercrime gang. Two of those arrested are online scammers who are believed to have ripped off as much as $1.8 million from their victims. Reports say Nigerian authorities might also freeze Black Axe’s bank accounts worth more than $1.3 million! Operation Jackal, an operation specifically directed against Black Axe, involved police forces from 14 nations.  

Operation Falcon, Delilah

In March 2022, a 37-year-old, reportedly the head of TMT (technology, media, and telecoms) group, a cybercrime syndicate, was nabbed by the police while trying to reenter Nigeria after fleeing the country in 2021. The TMT group (aka Silver Terrier) is widely held responsible for phishing attacks and business email compromise schemes. The criminal group fleeced $2.4 billion from companies via business email spoofing in a single year – 2021. In all, the group compromised more than half a million businesses and individuals in more than 150 countries. The Interpol, aided by law enforcement agencies in four countries including Nigeria, kicked off Operation Falcon in two phases between 2020 and early 2022 to smash the crime network. Tech support for the operation came from various sources - Group-IB, Palo Alto Networks, Trend Micro, and CyberTOOLBELT; as examples. By the end of 2021, fourteen TMT gang members were arrested bars while more than 800,000 potential domain credentials were confiscated. In the last piece of action – dubbed “Operation Delilah,” the group’s alleged crime boss was arrested.[4] 

Multinational Operation against DoppelPaymer Gang

In the first week of March 2023, police arrested two members of the DoppelPaymer ransomware gang in Germany and Ukraine. Earlier, 11 members of the group were identified in a raid carried out in late February 2023 by a multinational police force. Electronic assets used supposedly used by the group were also seized. The DoppelPaymer malware came to light in July 2019 and, by December 2020, the lethal ransomware had been used against an estimated 37 targets. The ransomware has been linked to Indrik Spider and Evil Corp, both Russia-based cybercriminal syndicates. DoppelPaymer takes effect in the target system by terminating anti-virus software and malware monitoring tools. Have thus outmaneuvered the target’s cyber defenses, the cybercriminals proceed to encrypt files, steal data, and demand hefty ransoms. Victims include big names like Foxconn and Petróleos Mexicanos, Mexico’s state-run petroleum enterprise. The multinational drive against DoppelPaymer involved the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, the FBI as well as Dutch, German, and Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. 

Joint initiative: FBI, Interpol, and Ireland’s Gardai

In March 2023, the chief of Ireland’s national police (“Gardai”) said his organization had teamed up with the FBI and Interpol to dismantle cybercrime gangs, considered Ireland’s biggest scourge, alongside drug cartels. Commissioner Drew Harris of Gardai has announced more actions, especially against the Kinahan cartel, an organized crime group in Ireland worth a billion euros. Drugs and money laundering are the key focus areas of the cartel founded in the 1990s. The gang bosses are apparently in hiding somewhere in UAE. These include the gang’s founder Christy Kinahan, elder son Daniel, and younger son Christy Jr. Daniel is the cartel’s ‘operations head.’ The US government has offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to the arrest of the gang’s leadership. In September 2022, Johnny Morrissey, named by US authorities as a key member of the cartel, was arrested in Spain. This Kinahan "enforcer" was allegedly helping his crime syndicate launder up to $370,000 a day (!) via hawala, a money transfer system dating back to the 8th century. [5][6]

The only task for a global cyber regime is to slay the cyber Hydra.