Gardaí in Cork were involved in an international Interpol operation targeting a West Africa crime syndicate which led to the arrest of 34 people.
Operation Jackal was conducted across the country in May and focused on the Black Axe gang - who are a violent group involved in cyber-enabled financial fraud.
The group has been known to use business email compromise schemes, romance and inheritance scams, along with credit card and tax fraud to extort money from victims.
Black Axe are also involved in money laundering and are believed to operate a large network of up to 4,000 money mules to launder the proceeds of their crimes.
More than €2 million was seized in the Operation which saw premises searched in Dublin, Wicklow and Longford and 34 arrests including one here in East Cork.
Speaking on the Neil Prendeville Show Detective Superintendent Michael Cryan from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau says those arrested were involved in money laundering:
"Many of these young people who act as money mules, do not know that they are helping a criminal organisation like this. They feel it's a very benign sort of activity 'Oh, I've just given my bank account to somebody. There's no harm in it, but the harm is that the money from fraud finances all sorts of other crimes as well. It goes back to African and other countries where it's used to pay bribes to corrupt and it finances other crimes as well".
