Chinese Cybercrime Networks Spread ‘Like A Cancer’ Into Africa

When authorities in Namibia discovered a Chinese-led “pig butchering” cryptocurrency investment scam in late 2023, they arrested 14 people, including nine Chinese nationals. Authorities charged the group with 222 counts of fraud, racketeering, money laundering, human trafficking and other offenses.

“The scam involves a three-stage process: find, raise and slaughter,” Prosecutor General Martha Imalwa said in her affidavit, which was made public in January. Once the victim’s cryptocurrency investment is deemed to have grown fat enough, she explained, it gets slaughtered.

“As the investor commits more financially, the scam culminates in a sudden and devastating loss. The investor’s funds disappear, and the harsh reality of being defrauded sets in.”

The elaborate scam, which originated in China around 2016 when it was known as “Sha Zhu Pan” or the “Killing Pig Plate,” is carried out through the creation of fake identities on internet platforms and online communication with victims to win their trust before getting them to invest money in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme.

It’s the type of story that has become more common across the continent, as Chinese syndicates responsible for multibillion-dollar cybercrimes have begun to establish themselves in African countries.

A report published on April 19 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) detailed how Chinese and Southeast Asian gangs have made tens of billions of dollars annually by targeting victims in fake investments, cryptocurrency, romance and other cyber scams.

Law enforcement operations in China and Southeast Asia have sent the criminal networks scattering for new homes, leading them to expand worldwide and establish footholds in African countries such as Angola, Namibia, Nigeria and Zambia.

“It spreads like a cancer,” Benedikt Hofmann, UNODC acting regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement on April 21. “Authorities treat it in one area, but the roots never disappear, they simply migrate.

“This has resulted in a situation in which the region has essentially become an interconnected ecosystem, driven by sophisticated syndicates freely exploiting vulnerabilities, jeopardizing state sovereignty and distorting and corrupting policy-making processes and other government systems and institutions.”

While China and countries in Southeast Asia lost an estimated $37 billion to cyber fraud in 2023, there were “much larger estimated losses” worldwide, the report stated. Chinese criminal syndicates and other illicit actors from Southeast Asia are becoming leaders in cyber fraud and money laundering through cryptocurrencies and underground banking, posing a significant threat to the national security of African countries.

The criminal networks undermine critical infrastructure, disrupt essential services and make sensitive data more vulnerable to foreign espionage or cyber warfare. Cybercrime also has severe economic consequences and erodes public trust in governments and institutions.

Reports of significant operations by African law enforcement against Chinese-led cybercrime networks began to arise in early 2024. Zambian authorities discovered a fraud syndicate in April 2024 and arrested 77 suspects, including 22 Chinese nationals who later were sentenced to up to 11 years in prison for leading the operation.

Dozens of Chinese nationals were detained in Angola in late 2024 for alleged involvement in online gambling, fraud and cybercrime.

Nigeria, already wrestling with homegrown cybercrime, has become a key destination for these foreign scam networks. Law enforcement agencies conducted two major raids in Lagos in December 2024 and Abuja in January 2025, leading to the arrest of nearly 1,000 people, including 177 Chinese nationals.

“Foreigners are taking advantage of our nation’s unfortunate reputation as a haven of frauds to establish a foothold here to disguise their atrocious criminal enterprises,” Ola Olukoyede, executive chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said in a news conference on December 16, 2024. “But, as this operation has shown, there will be no hiding places for criminals in Nigeria.”

The commission said foreign nationals used a facility resembling the corporate headquarters of a financial establishment to train hundreds of Nigerian accomplices, highlighting the serious potential of collaboration between Chinese and Nigerian criminal groups.

“All the floors are equipped with high-end desktop computers,” Olukoyede said. “On the fifth floor alone, investigators recovered 500 SIM cards of local [telecommunication companies] that were bought for criminal purposes.

“Their Nigerian accomplices were recruited by the foreign kingpins to prospect for victims online through phishing. Once the Nigerians are able to win the confidence of would-be victims, the foreigners would take over the actual task of defrauding the victims.”

Hofmann warned that criminal groups are evolving into advanced cyber threat actors. There is a growing synergy between cybercrime operations and money laundering networks, data brokers, and a range of malware, deepfake and other AI-driven technology services.

“The convergence between the acceleration and professionalization of these operations on the one hand and their geographical expansion into new parts of the region and beyond on the other translates into a new intensity in the industry — one that governments need to be prepared to respond to,” he said.

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