KEY POINTS
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Nigeria wants closer cooperation with the UK and US to dismantle cross-border cybercrime networks.
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Police are seeking stronger intelligence sharing and lawful information access from technology companies.
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Operations Rabbit Hole, Seraphim 1 and 2, and Cadre were cited as examples of coordinated enforcement efforts.
Nigeria is seeking stronger security cooperation with the United Kingdom and the United States to dismantle cybercrime networks through intelligence sharing, coordinated investigations and joint enforcement operations.
Bashir Abdullahi, an assistant commissioner of police who led Nigeria’s delegation to the recent Fraud Joint Disruptions Week in the UK, said tackling cybercrime requires authorities to target the wider networks supporting criminal activities, rather than focusing solely on individual suspects.
Abdullahi represented Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Disu at the engagement. The Nigerian delegation included officials from the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) and the Joint Case Team on Cybercrime (JCTC), established under the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.
Nigeria targets criminal networks and infrastructure
Abdullahi said law enforcement agencies must target fraudulent accounts, communication channels, digital infrastructure, criminal facilitators and illicit financial networks to disrupt cybercrime more effectively.
He reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to working with the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), US law enforcement agencies, Meta and other international partners to translate shared intelligence into coordinated enforcement outcomes.
According to him, closer cooperation would help authorities identify common criminal targets, coordinate investigations and disrupt fraud networks operating across Africa and other regions.
He stressed that cybercrime increasingly operates across national borders, making cooperation between countries essential to identifying suspects, tracing illicit proceeds and preventing offenders from exploiting differences between jurisdictions.
Police seek stronger cooperation with technology companies
The police official also called for deeper engagement with technology companies, including Meta, Google and Microsoft, to support criminal investigations and prosecutions.
He said timely access to relevant information, the preservation of digital evidence and effective channels for lawful information requests were important to investigating cyber-enabled offences.
Cooperation with technology firms can help investigators obtain relevant digital records through established legal processes and preserve evidence that might otherwise be lost or deleted.
Abdullahi said the establishment of the NPF-NCCC demonstrated Nigeria’s commitment to building specialised capabilities for tackling cybercrime.
He added that the centre had continued to improve its investigative and digital forensic capacity, strengthen coordination among agencies and expand international partnerships.
Cybercrime threats extend beyond online fraud
Abdullahi noted that although digital technology had become essential to communication, commerce and innovation, it had also created opportunities for crimes such as online fraud, identity theft, child exploitation and human trafficking.
He warned that the increasingly sophisticated and borderless nature of these offences meant that no country or law enforcement institution could effectively address them in isolation.
The assistant commissioner also identified the Nigeria-UK security and defence partnership as an important framework for exchanging active cyber threat intelligence and conducting joint operations.
He cited Operation Rabbit Hole, Operations Seraphim 1 and 2, and Operation Cadre as examples of initiatives demonstrating the value of intelligence sharing, joint planning and coordinated enforcement against cross-border cybercrime.
Nigeria’s push for closer international cooperation forms part of broader efforts to strengthen investigations and disrupt the financial and technological systems that enable cybercriminal networks to operate.
