According to Dark Reading, law enforcement reps from over 40 African nations met on December 10 at the Sixth Meeting of the Heads of National Liaison Offices in Algiers. They focused on the massive challenge of cross-border cybercrime, aiming to standardize equipment, improve digital connectivity, and boost training for cyber investigations. The push comes as African organizations faced an average of 3,153 cyberattacks per week in 2025, a rate 61% higher than the global average according to a Check Point Software report. Officials from Afripol and Interpol, like Benaired Mohamed and Neal Jetton, highlighted progress in coordination but admitted law enforcement is often “playing catch-up.” Recent years have seen more joint operations, a shift from the isolated investigations that used to go nowhere.
Playing Catch-Up in a Digital Gold Rush
Here’s the core problem: Africa’s digital adoption is exploding, but its cyber defenses and investigative muscle haven’t kept pace. Everyone’s getting online, mostly via mobile, but the infrastructure and skills to protect them are lagging way behind. And now AI is entering the scene, which is a double-edged sword. It promises economic boosts, but it also gives criminals more sophisticated tools. So you’ve got this perfect storm of high connectivity, low resilience, and increasingly clever bad actors. The result is that staggering attack rate. It’s not just a nuisance; it’s a direct threat to economic growth and public trust in online services. The police aren’t just fighting crime anymore; they’re trying to secure the foundation of a digital economy.
Talking Is Progress, But Gaps Remain
The big takeaway from the meeting is that they’re finally talking. As Check Point’s Ian Van Rensburg put it, five years ago a scam from Lagos to Nairobi meant two dead-end cases. Now, there’s communication. That’s huge. They’re standardizing how to handle digital evidence so a laptop in Kenya can be used in a Nigerian court. They’re working on encrypted channels for case communication. This is the boring, procedural stuff that actually makes or breaks international cases. But let’s not get too celebratory. The article points out the persistent, gnarly hurdles: varying national laws, concerns over data sovereignty, and a sheer lack of trained investigators. Cybercrime moves in minutes. Legal harmonization moves at a glacial, bureaucratic pace. That mismatch is a gap criminals will keep exploiting.
The Long Road From Collaboration to Conviction
So what does effective cooperation actually look like? It’s more than just annual meetings. It’s about regular, hands-on training for investigators, not just seminars. It’s adopting tools that can keep up with criminal tech. And critically, it’s linking regional groups like Afripol with global networks like Interpol. Initiatives like Interpol’s African Joint Operation against Cybercrime (AFJOC) try to do exactly that—merge global intelligence with regional focus. The goal is to go after entire syndicates, especially as groups from Southeast Asia expand their operations into Africa. But building this capacity is a massive undertaking. It requires sustained funding, political will, and a shift from seeing cyber units as a tech add-on to treating them as a core, frontline policing function. They’ve started the journey, but the road is long and the criminals aren’t waiting.
