In the World Economic Forum article „Cybercrime is borderless. This global bust shows how law enforcement can be too“, authors Sean Doyle and Natalia Umansky explain why the only effective response to digital crime is one that crosses jurisdictions and leverages public and private capabilities in concert. Their piece documents how a coordinated international operation has demonstrated a repeatable model for disrupting criminal enterprises that exploit the speed and reach of the internet.
The centerpiece is Operation Serengeti 2025, a joint effort coordinated by INTERPOL with AFRIPOL and a network of government and industry partners. The results are striking, including 1,200 arrests across 18 countries and the recovery of 97 million dollars, which together point to a maturing playbook for collective action against cyber enabled crime. Rather than isolated takedowns, the operation relied on shared intelligence, synchronized timing and a clear division of roles that allowed agencies to act with scale and precision.
The article illustrates the breadth of this approach through concrete cases. In Angola authorities dismantled 25 cryptocurrency mining centers and seized 45 illicit power stations valued at more than 37 million dollars, redirecting much needed energy back to public distribution. In Zambia investigators broke up a fraudulent investment scheme that had siphoned an estimated 300 million dollars from at least 65,000 victims, while arrests in Côte d’Ivoire traced activity back to origins in Germany, underscoring how cybercrime routinely spans borders in both victimization and infrastructure.
Doyle and Umansky show that this success rests on a collaboration architecture rather than ad hoc coordination. INTERPOL served as the trusted hub for operational planning and information exchange, while private sector and civil society partners contributed threat insights, tooling and specialist expertise. The piece highlights the World Economic Forum’s Cybercrime Atlas initiative as a key contributor, alongside companies such as Fortinet and Microsoft that support investigations and training, as well as allied consortiums like the Cyber Threat Alliance and the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance. The message is that cross sector partnerships are moving from competitive silos to shared frameworks that raise the cost of criminal activity and make disruption sustainable.
For corporate governance and internal audit the implications are immediate. Boards should anticipate that law enforcement and industry will increasingly request standardized data sharing, evidence preservation and incident reporting that align with multi jurisdictional operations. Audit committees can press management to map where the organization fits in these collaboration frameworks, verify readiness to contribute indicators and artifacts under lawful processes, and evaluate third party exposure where suppliers or platforms are part of targeted ecosystems. Internal audit can add value by assuring the design and operating effectiveness of controls that support participation in such partnerships, from legal gateways and confidentiality safeguards to analytics pipelines that transform internal telemetry into actionable intelligence without eroding privacy. These are not theoretical capabilities but operational enablers that determine how effectively a company helps shrink the attack surface beyond its own perimeter.
Cybercrime is global by design and the article „Cybercrime is borderless. This global bust shows how law enforcement can be too“ by Sean Doyle and Natalia Umansky offers a timely signal that collaboration at scale is beginning to catch up. For readers who would like to review the original publication, it was released on 27 August 2025 here.