INTERPOL has identified 126 Foreign Terrorist Fighters following a ground-breaking international operation that used artificial intelligence to track down suspects online.
The five-day initiative, tagged Operation Shams II, was coordinated from Tunis, Tunisia, and brought together 28 law enforcement experts from 11 countries, including Ghana.
Investigators extracted over 108,000 facial images from propaganda material published online by jihadist groups. By deploying AI agents and automated scripts to filter and deduplicate the data, analysts narrowed the images to 6,362 high-quality matches for processing through INTERPOL’s facial recognition system.
The dataset was further boosted by intelligence from INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau in Baghdad, Iraq, which supplied hundreds of additional suspect profiles. All AI-generated outputs underwent review and verification by human analysts to meet operational standards.
Match details are currently being integrated into global security databases to track suspect movements, with investigative leads already aiding active prosecutions. Among these is an ongoing judicial case targeting two detained foreign fighters.
The operation also targeted illicit financial pipelines, utilizing specialized cryptocurrency tracing tools that prompted three urgent data requests to Virtual Asset Service Providers to disrupt funding streams.
Additionally, participating officers engaged with online gaming industry leaders to combat youth radicalization on digital platforms.
María Carmen Muñoz González, INTERPOL’s Director of Counter-Terrorism, highlighted the impact of the initiative:
“The success of Operation Shams II demonstrates the value of combining international law enforcement cooperation with responsible AI-assisted analytical capabilities. The operational model provides a strong foundation for supporting future international law enforcement cooperation targeting criminal actors around the world.”
Operation Shams II was funded by the European Union under the CT TECH+ Project, with support from the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT). Participating nations included Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Kenya, Iraq, Malaysia, Philippines, Qatar, Tajikistan, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
