Fake delivery messages. Suspicious links. Someone pretending to be your bank.
If you’ve ever received a message that looked official but felt a little strange, you already know how common online scams have become.
And Morocco is now part of a major international operation trying to tackle the networks behind them.
The country participated in Confrontation Ghost, a three-month cybercrime operation coordinated by the United Arab Emirates in collaboration with international partners, including Interpol.
The operation brought together law-enforcement authorities from 30 countries between July and September 2026.
The targets included AI-assisted fraud, financial scams and online sexual extortion, also known as sextortion.
Just how big was this operation?
According to figures released by the organizers, authorities identified more than $39 billion in funds and digital assets connected to suspected fraudulent activities.
They also reported preventing approximately 123.7 million online fraud attempts, arresting more than 960 people and identifying thousands of suspects.
Twenty-nine suspected scam centers were dismantled, while hundreds of social media accounts and thousands of bank accounts were targeted by enforcement measures.
An important clarification: these are the operation’s international totals, not results achieved by Morocco alone.
And identifying assets linked to suspected fraud isn’t the same as recovering $39 billion in stolen money.
The Moroccan participation reflects an increasingly international problem.
Scammers don’t necessarily operate in the same country as their victims.
A fraudulent message received in Casablanca could involve criminals, accounts and technical infrastructure spread across several countries.
That’s why cross-border cooperation matters.
The operation also involved private technology and financial companies, which helped share information and identify suspicious activity.
For ordinary internet users, the message remains relevant: a professional-looking SMS or website isn’t automatically legitimate.
As scams become more sophisticated, including through AI, recognizing suspicious activity is only one part of the solution.
Authorities also need to find the networks running the scams.
