Philippines, South Korea, Interpol cuff 3,500 suspected cyber scammers, seize $300M

Interpol’s Operation HAECHI IV—a six-month, 34-country crackdown funded by South Korea—resulted in 3,500 arrests, the seizure of $300M ($199M cash, $101M virtual assets), and the blocking of 82,112 bank accounts tied to cyber-enabled fraud, chiefly BEC, e-commerce, and investment scams; Interpol also issued Purple Notices on an NFT rug-pull scheme and the growing use of AI/deepfakes and voice cloning for impersonation, sextortion, and investment fraud, noted a joint Korean–Filipino arrest of a high-profile online gambling suspect, and the article separately updates the Do Kwon extradition case in Montenegro.