More than 130 people have been arrested or detained in Ghana in a scam takedown linked to nearly US$10 million in losses, FBI Director Kash Patel said on 8 October.
The figure is not a count of suspects. In his post on X, Patel said the number included victims who will be sent back to their home country. He did not say how many of those held were alleged scammers and how many were trafficked workers. Investigators have so far identified 89 victims of the fraud and seized more than 300 devices, and the investigation is continuing.
The raid is part of Operation Blackout, which the FBI describes as a global effort against scam compounds that defraud Americans. Patel has described those compounds as fortified sites where trafficked workers are allegedly forced to run fraud against victims abroad.
The case fits a pattern Ghanaian authorities have uncovered repeatedly over the past year: young Nigerians lured to Accra with job offers, then held in rented apartments and made to run romance scams.
In January 2026, raids at East Legon Hills, Afienya, Kwabenya, Weija and Tuba led to the arrest of nine Nigerian nationals as suspected key actors and the rescue of 44 others considered victims. Officers found the rescued group working on laptops inside apartments. In October 2025, police rescued 57 Nigerians aged between 18 and 26 and arrested five suspects accused of trafficking them into the country. Nigeria’s Diaspora Commission has said its anti-trafficking agency would give medical care and rehabilitation to returnees from one earlier handover.
The losses are mounting at home as well. Online fraud, including romance scams, accounted for GH¢12.87 million in losses reported to the Cyber Security Authority (CSA) between January and September 2025, about 47 percent of all cybercrime complaints the authority received in that period.
Patel has put the wider operation’s results at roughly US$17 billion seized, hundreds of alleged scammers arrested and thousands of trafficked workers freed. He closed his post on the Ghana case by saying more was to come.
