A suspected senior member of the hacker group OPERA1ER has been arrested in Operation Nervone conducted jointly by multiple international law enforcement agencies, Interpol said in a press note.
“Following extensive cooperation, Interpol, Afripol, Group-IB, and C?te d’Ivoire’s Direction de l’Information et des Traces Technologiques (DITT) are announcing the arrest of a suspected senior member of the group, dealing a significant blow to their criminal activities,” Interpol said.
OPERA1ER — also known as NX$M$, DESKTOP Group, and Common Raven — has been operational for over four years. It is a highly organized criminal organization that has targeted financial institutions and mobile banking services with malware, phishing campaigns, and large-scale Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams.
“The group is believed to have stolen an estimated $11 million — potentially as much as $30 million — in more than 30 attacks across 15 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” Interpol said.
Operation Nervone
Operation Nervone was backed by two key Interpol initiatives which were the African Joint Operation against Cybercrime and the Interpol Support Programme for the African Union in relation to Afripol, funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Germany’s Federal Foreign Office, respectively.
“In early June, authorities in C?te d’Ivoire were able to arrest a key suspect linked to attacks against financial institutions across Africa,” Interpol said in its release.
