China, Africa boost law enforcement ties in crackdown on cross-border cybercrime

From online-gambling rings in eSwatini to SIM swapping in Kenya and cybercrime networks in Zambia, a wave of cross-border fraud is drawing African governments and China into closer security cooperation.

China hosted East African security ministers and police chiefs in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, on September 10 for talks on terrorism, kidnapping, online fraud and other cross-border threats.

China’s public security minister, Wang Xiaohong, said Beijing would strengthen law-enforcement cooperation with East Africa and work jointly against terrorism, kidnapping, unlawful detention, and telecoms and online fraud.

On the same day, China launched the International Alliance Combating Telecoms and Cyber Fraud, with 46 founding countries including Kenya.

China said the alliance would promote regular law-enforcement cooperation, professional training, joint drills and coordinated action against cross-border telecoms fraud.

Beijing seeks to protect Chinese citizens, companies and projects in Africa, where it has vast commercial interests, while African governments are seeking better access to police training, technology and intelligence sharing.

Observers say police cooperation allows China to expand its security role without formal alliances or a large military footprint.

According to Alessandro Arduino, an associate fellow in international security at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, the Lianyungang initiative against telecoms and online fraud fits into Beijing’s broader effort to expand its security engagement with Africa under China’s Global Security Initiative.

“Cyberfraud, an endemic problem in Africa, provides China with an especially useful entry point, as it is a genuine transnational security problem but one that also directly affects Chinese citizens and investments across Africa,” Arduino said.

He added that Beijing was working through multilateral institutions and established policing networks, including Interpol, while promoting China-initiated mechanisms for intelligence sharing and coordinated law-enforcement operations.

At the local level, Arduino said, “China is steadily expanding the training of African police and security officials, capacity building that is explicitly included in the China-Africa security agenda.”

Just weeks before the Jiangsu talks, China warned its citizens to leave eSwatini over alleged telecoms fraud and gambling crimes. Chinese nationals and organisations already in eSwatini should “evacuate or relocate to relatively safer areas such as South Africa as soon as possible”, it warned in an August 25 advisory.

The warning followed police raids in March on suspected illegal online gambling centres in and around Mbabane, Eswatini’s capital. Forty Chinese nationals arrested during the raids reportedly remained in detention in late August.

Similar investigations are under way elsewhere in Africa, including in Zambia where authorities in August detained 79 people, including 11 Chinese nationals, in a raid on a suspected cybercrime operation in the capital Lusaka.

On September 1, four Chinese nationals appeared in court in Kenyan capital Nairobi over an alleged SIM-swapping and money laundering scheme.

Fraud networks have also targeted African jobseekers, including Kenyans, Ugandans and Ethiopians, who have been lured by false job offers to scam compounds in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.

In May, Kenya’s foreign minister, Musalia Mudavadi, told lawmakers that 751 Kenyans had been rescued from scam compounds in Myanmar between 2022 and 2026. A further 406 were rescued in Cambodia in the first four months of this year, while 29 had been repatriated from Laos.

“Over time, three Kenyans have reportedly lost their lives in the scam compounds due to illness, while one expectant lady passed on after the scammers attempted to forcefully terminate the pregnancy,” Mudavadi said.

Beijing has signed dozens of public security and law enforcement agreements with African countries, including a deal in Beijing in 2024 with 14 members of the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation.

According to Liselotte Odgaard, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Hudson Institute, China increasingly views telecoms fraud, cybercrime, kidnapping, human trafficking and related transnational crimes as threats that originate outside its borders and require coordinated international responses.

Beijing had moved from an initial focus on trade and infrastructure towards police cooperation, counterterrorism, intelligence sharing and security capacity building, Odgaard said.

The new International Alliance Combating Telecoms and Cyber Fraud “reflects an effort to build institutionalised security cooperation around issues where China sees growing governance gaps and direct national interests”, she added.

However, Odgaard argued that the alliance was “unlikely to become a direct alternative” to established international and regional policing organisations any time soon.

The involvement of 46 founding states, 34 observers, the United Nations and Interpol suggested it would initially complement existing organisations rather than replace them, she explained.

However, over time, it could “evolve into a China-led security platform”, according to Odgaard.

She said: “Because the alliance was initiated, hosted and largely shaped by China, it gives Beijing greater agenda-setting influence over transnational policing, training, technology transfer and law enforcement cooperation.”

Georg Lammich, a senior researcher in international relations and African politics at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, said African governments were seeking closer cooperation with China to gain access to training, technology, intelligence sharing and investigative capacity.

“This should not simply be understood as China exporting a security model to Africa. There is also demand from African governments for additional partners and additional law-enforcement capacity,” said Lammich, who is also an affiliated researcher at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

“Police cooperation gives China a way to deepen security relationships without relying on formal alliances or a large permanent military presence.”