Can Ghana Win the Fight Against Cybercrime That Foreigners Bring to Its Shores

For years Ghana's cybercrime story was told as a home-grown one, about young people running romance scams and mobile money fraud from internet cafés and rented rooms. That story is now incomplete.

The recent raids show organised groups, many made up of foreign nationals, setting up in ordinary Accra neighbourhoods. The question is whether Ghana can stop them.

The scale of the problem
Between May and July 2025, joint operations by the Cyber Security Authority (CSA) and the police CID led to 65 arrests, of whom 47 were foreign nationals and 18 were Ghanaians. In one raid at an estate in Dodowa, 25 foreign nationals were arrested with 40 laptops, 30 phones and Starlink equipment.

The pace has not slowed. In late December 2025, a joint operation led by the CSA detained 141 people linked to mobile money fraud and business email compromise scams. Preliminary findings suggested the suspects were Nigerians, and a Ghanaian landlord was arrested for housing 100 of them. In January 2026, 53 Nigerian nationals were arrested and 44 suspected victims rescued in raids across East Legon Hills, Afienya and other areas.

In March, police and immigration officers arrested 12 suspects in a combined cybercrime and human trafficking operation.

Not every group is Nigerian. In May 2025, police and the Ghana Revenue Authority arrested ten people from China and Malaysia at Weija for cybercrime.

In January 2026, immigration officers arrested 11 foreign nationals in Tuba over counterfeit currency printing and cyber fraud.

Many of the arrested are also victims
The most important detail in these cases is that many of the people found at the laptops did not come willingly. In Dodowa, investigators concluded that 23 of the 25 foreigners were trafficking victims, and they were repatriated.

Later, Ghana sent home 120 Nigerians rescued in Operation Cyberhunt, which was carried out with agencies from Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States. Ghanaian authorities themselves have noted a growing link between cybercrime networks and transnational migration.

This changes the problem. Ghana is dealing with human trafficking that uses cybercrime, as well as fraud that happens to involve foreigners. The people at the keyboards are often the weakest part of the chain. The organisers, recruiters and local facilitators are harder to reach, and they are the ones who profit.

What Ghana is doing well
Ghana has shown it can act on intelligence. The raids are planned, they involve several agencies, and they are increasingly joint operations with foreign partners. Handing suspects to Nigerian officers at the border, after profiling by immigration and INTERPOL, is the right model for a crime that crosses borders.

Ghana is also targeting property owners. The Immigration Service has warned that harbouring illegal immigrants is an offence under section 52(1)(b) of the Immigration Act, 2000 (Act 573), and the landlord arrest in the 141 case shows that warning is being enforced. The public can report suspected scams to the CSA by short code 292 or at [email protected].

Where the gaps are
My own assessment, as a security analyst, is that four weaknesses could undermine these gains.

Deportation instead of prosecution. In April 2025 the Interior Minister announced that foreigners arrested for galamsey or cyber fraud would be deported, not prosecuted, and placed on a stop list. The policy saves money and court time, but it carries risks. Deportation without trial leaves no conviction, no public evidence and no proof for investigators of who ran the network.

Stop lists are also easy to evade in a region where borders are porous and travel documents can be changed. Deterrence works only when criminals expect real consequences. Prosecution should be the default for organisers and ringleaders, with deportation reserved for trafficked victims and low-level participants.

Raids treat the symptom. Arresting 141 people in one night makes headlines, but the recruiters who brought them to Ghana are usually somewhere else. Each raid should feed an investigation into financing, recruitment channels, housing arrangements and the Ghanaian facilitators who made the operation possible.

Otherwise a replacement crew simply moves into the next estate.

Local complicity. The CSA has said that some Ghanaians act as facilitators for foreign-run scams. These include landlords, agents, and those who provide SIM cards and mobile money accounts.

Weak identity checks in telecoms, mobile money and rental housing make it easy for such networks to operate quietly. Stronger know-your-customer rules there would hurt the criminals more than a single raid.

Regional cooperation is still too ad hoc. Joint operations with Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States show what is possible, but they are exceptions. Cybercrime networks move quickly across West Africa. The sub-region needs standing arrangements for sharing intelligence, evidence and suspect information, not cooperation arranged case by case.

A fair warning
Ghanaians should not draw the wrong lesson. Foreign involvement is real, but it is not the whole problem, and treating it as such would divert attention from Ghanaians who also commit online fraud and from the local people who help foreign groups. Nor should any nationality be blamed as a group.

Many of those found in these houses are young men who were lured with false promises and then forced to work. A response that treats them only as criminals would punish the victims and leave the organisers free.

So can Ghana win?
Ghana can certainly disrupt these networks, and the arrests show the capacity exists. Ending the problem is a much bigger task. It requires prosecuting the organisers, protecting trafficked people, tightening identity controls in telecoms and housing, and building lasting cooperation with neighbours.

If Ghana does those four things, it will be hard for criminals to use the country as a base. If it relies on headline raids and quick deportations, the networks will keep coming back.

A few notes on sourcing. The reports I used give different breakdowns for the May–July 2025 operations (47 foreign nationals in one report, 49 in another), so I used the lower figure. I couldn't find a date for the Operation Cyberhunt repatriation, so the article does not give one.

Mustapha Bature Sallama
Medical/Science communicator, Private Investigator, Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Analysis,United States Institute of Peace (USIP), [email protected] +233555275880.

References
Ghanaian Times. (2025, August). Cyber Security Authority; Ghana police arrests 65 individuals between May and July 2025. https://ghanaiantimes.com.gh/cyber-security-authority-ghana-police-arrests-65-individuals-between-may-and-july-2025/

Cyber Security Authority Ghana. (2025, August). CSA uncovers rising involvement of foreign nationals in local online scams. https://csa.gov.gh/csa-uncovers-rising-involvement-of-foreign-nationals-in-local-online-scams.php

Graphic Online. (2025). Ghana's cybercrime crackdown exposes foreign nationals and local complicity in sophisticated scams. https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/ghanas-cybercrime-crackdown-exposes-foreign-nationals-and-local-complicity-in-sophisticated-scams.html

Rainbow Radio. (2025, approx. December). Ghana security agencies arrest 141 suspects believed to be Nigerians in cybercrime crackdown. https://rainbowradioonline.com/2025/12/27/ghana-security-agencies-arrest-141-suspects-believed-to-be-nigerians-in-cybercrime-crackdown/

Graphic Online. (2026, January). 53 suspects arrested in cybercrime raids across East Legon Hills, Afienya and other Accra areas. https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/53-nigerians-arrested-in-cybercrime-raids-across-east-legon-hills-afienya-and-other-accra-areas.html

Citi Newsroom. (2026, January 7). 11 foreigners arrested in Tuba over fake dollar printing, cyber fraud. https://citinewsroom.com/2026/01/11-foreigners-arrested-in-tuba-over-fake-dollar-printing-cyber-fraud/

Citi Newsroom. (2026, March 15). 12 suspects arrested in major cybercrime, human trafficking operation. https://www.citinewsroom.com/?p=1318388

Rainbow Radio. (2025, approx. May). Police arrest ten foreign nationals in connection with cybercrime. https://rainbowradioonline.com/2025/05/28/police-arrest-ten-foreign-nationals-in-connection-with-cybercrime/

Blueprint. (n.d.). Ghana repatriates 120 Nigerians rescued from cybercrime operations. https://blueprint.ng/?p=853298

Graphic Online. (2025, April). Gov't will not prosecute foreigners engaged in criminal activities, but will simply deport them – Interior Minister Muntaka. https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/foreign-illegal-miners-and-cyber-fraudsters-will-be-deported-without-trial-interior-minister.html