Benin: Republican Police carry out major crackdown on QNET-linked fraud networks

According to the Republican Police spokesman, 24 large-scale operations carried out nationwide since April 2026 have led to the arrest of 92 people, several of whom were remanded in custody after being brought before the Court for the Repression of Economic Offences and Terrorism (CRIET).

​Investigations show these networks rely primarily on close-knit recruitment. Recruiters target young people looking for a first job, vocational training, an internship, or the prospect of travelling abroad.

Victims are then grouped together in clandestine housing, isolated, and pressured to hand over large sums of money under the pretext of investments or purchases of virtual products.

​Police operations, concentrated notably in the towns of Parakou, Godomey and Taconoukon, have broken up numerous gathering points and freed several hundred victims, some of whom have been repatriated to their home countries.

​Cross-border cooperation and the crackdown extended to accomplices

​Law enforcement action now extends beyond Benin’s borders. In coordination with the Economic and Financial Brigade (BEF) and Interpol’s National Central Bureau in Cotonou, joint operations have been carried out in a neighbouring English-speaking country.

Between May and July 2026, three lodging sites were dismantled there, leading to the arrest of five senior figures who were extradited to Benin, as well as the release of around a hundred Beninese nationals.

​Faced with the persistence of this phenomenon, which has totalled nearly 70 operations and 1,386 arrests since 2018, the Republican Police are tightening their regulatory stance.

The spokesman issued a stern warning to property owners: anyone who knowingly makes their house or apartment available to these networks to shelter their illegal activities will now be prosecuted as an accomplice and held accountable before the courts.