Telecom fraud networks linked to Chinese operators are spreading across Africa, and the people paying the price are ordinary citizens: scam victims on multiple continents, and trafficked workers lured with promises of paid jobs and then forced to work in scam centers under violent conditions. That human toll is now driving an expansion of China-Africa security cooperation beyond military ties into cross-border law enforcement, a shift discussed by Géraud Neema, Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden on the China in Africa podcast.
China and Madagascar recently launched their first joint operation against telecom fraud. The operation stands out because Chinese law enforcement worked on the ground alongside Malagasy authorities and the FBI, which Madagascar invited because many victims of the fraud operations were based in the United States. Similar raids have taken place in Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria, with operations also reported in Zambia and Uganda.
The spread of these networks has a traceable history. When China worked with governments in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia to crack down on scam centers concentrated there, operators began relocating, taking advantage of large Chinese communities in Africa and of what the podcast described as low levels of law enforcement scrutiny. The centers tend to favor countries with abundant energy, since many are involved in crypto mining and are heavily energy-hungry, and weak governance helps them operate. Angola was cited as a place where they thrived for a long time before crackdowns began.
For the public, the stakes are layered. Victims of the scams include people in China, the United States and Africa itself. But as van Staden emphasized, many scam operations are staffed by trafficked people, kidnapped or lured in and forced to work in slave-labor-like conditions. Neema described a case in which a crackdown on the Thailand-Myanmar border found many Nigerians and Ghanaians who had been promised high-paid jobs, only to have their passports confiscated on arrival. After a raid, governments often struggle to distinguish criminals from trafficking victims, and with numerous nationalities involved, working out what should happen to those people becomes extremely difficult.
Beijing has responded by building a coalition of 46 countries to combat telecom fraud, with Kenya among the participants. A key motivation, Neema noted, is that although the operators work overseas, many of their targets remain in China, and Beijing wants to protect its citizens from its own people operating abroad. Olander observed that this is one of the few areas where the United States and China share an interest, with reports of cooperation and intelligence-sharing in Southeast Asia, though such joint work has not yet happened in Africa.
The cooperation is not new. In 2016, Chinese and Kenyan authorities conducted a large raid, controversial at the time because Taiwanese suspects were also pulled in. Chinese special police forces have joined Ugandan police on raids against Chinese wanted criminals, and Chinese, Nigerian and Congolese law enforcement have worked together against the kidnapping of Chinese nationals. Policing also falls under China’s Global Security Initiative, and a conference on security cooperation between China and Eastern African countries was held in September. Neema expects the cooperation to become a prominent, lasting feature of the relationship, though he doubts Chinese police officers will again patrol African streets. A 2017 episode in Zambia, and the sight of Chinese officers in uniform in Johannesburg’s Chinatown, generated strong public backlash; Olander noted that the Johannesburg police had said they lacked the linguistic and cultural capacity to work in Chinese communities and invited the help. Van Staden argued foreign policing in Africa is not unique to the Chinese context, though Olander countered that the optics of foreign police in full uniform remain deeply sensitive.
Meanwhile, the second development with direct consequences for African citizens is financial. The African Union-backed African Credit Rating Agency, AfCRA, was launched this week at a gathering of African finance professionals in Mauritius. Its premise is that the big three agencies, Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, systematically overstate African risk, inflating the interest rates African governments and companies pay. A UNDP study cited at the launch estimated Africa has lost 74 billion dollars because of poor ratings, and Botswana, known for political stability, was cited as an example of a country rated as unstable. Critics also point to thin staffing on Africa desks and a flat, un-nuanced view in which a problem in Tanzania punishes a Nigerian company thousands of kilometers away.
AfCRA’s organizers insist it will be independent and work alongside the big three rather than against them, but its influence depends on acceptance. China’s Dagong Global offers a cautionary precedent: used domestically, it has had little international effect. The question now includes China’s capital markets, where Egypt has issued panda bonds, yuan-denominated debt, and Kenya plans a bond equivalent to 300 million dollars. Whether Chinese commercial banks incorporate AfCRA’s methodology remains open. Van Staden noted that about 4 trillion dollars in African capital, including pension and wealth funds, is poorly rated by external agencies, and a more fine-grained domestic rating system could make that capital more productive for African development.
Both stories, the guests agreed, reflect a broader push for African agency. At the next FOCAC summit in Brazzaville, Neema expects credit ratings to feature in the final statement, and both he and Olander doubt a big headline lending number will appear. China’s engagement, they argued, is shifting toward targeted cooperation in areas like AI training, agriculture and vocational education, where the impact is felt more directly by people on the ground. Whether that shift, and the new rating agency, can deliver tangible gains for ordinary Africans is the question that will define the next chapter.