Algeria

Of the 3,064 cybercrime cases the National Gendarmerie recorded in 2025, 149 had a minor as the victim, about 5 percent, and 1,412 were privacy violations. The 950 scam cases sit beside those classes. Lieutenant Colonel Hamri Touati, head of the gendarmerie's central cybercrime service, said in November 2024 that the cases reach citizens and businesses. The usual approach is an investment offer, a job at a high salary, or a gift presented as free, often in a call or a message from a foreign number. The people behind the fraud often work from servers abroad.

On postal accounts the approach uses the postal service's own name. In a communiqué of 5 November 2024, Algérie Poste said impostors were sending fake pages and text messages and asking for postal logins and Edahabia card details. It named BaridiMob and ECCP as its only official apps, and +ALG Poste+ as its only official text sender.

By November 2024 the gendarmerie had more than 400 specialists on this work, most of them computer engineers. Its web patrols had taken up 250 cases that year on their own and informed the prosecutor. Contact with Facebook was limited to children and vulnerable people. In 2025 the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications ran a campaign under the slogan "Soyez vigilants, le fraudeur attend l'opportunité" (Be vigilant, the fraudster is waiting for an opening), with television, radio, leaflets, a BaridiMob update and an online reporting platform.

The money leaves when the customer confirms the payment. On a postal account that confirmation is a one-time code, or the details of the Edahabia card, after a page or a call in the name of Algérie Poste. A fake BaridiMob app takes the login. The story in front of the payment, as the gendarmerie's cybercrime service described it in November 2024, is an investment, a highly paid job or a free gift, often from a foreign number. Once the customer has ordered the payment, the Bank of Algeria, the central bank, says in regulation 25-03 of 14 April 2025 that the firm must see that operation through.

Controls sit before that confirmation. The same regulation covers banks, financial institutions and the other firms under the monetary and banking law. They must protect funds against fraud and unauthorised access, give online services the same protection as a branch, and tell the customer and the banking commission at once if personal data are compromised. An instruction of 17 August 2025 for payment firms requires strong authentication when a customer starts an electronic payment, and caps those accounts at 100,000, 500,000 or 1,000,000 dinars by level.

Virtual assets are refused on a separate rule. Law 25-10 bans them, including mining. Guidelines of 12 November 2025 tell banks and Algérie Poste to reject transfers to platforms already identified as dealing in those assets, and to watch for bitcoin, tether and ethereum. A confirmed transfer to an ordinary account still goes through.

After the payment, the written rules cover the complaint and the trace. Regulation 25-03 says the customer tells the firm at once of any abnormal or unauthorised transaction, as soon as they notice it. The firm must acknowledge the complaint immediately and deal with it within 10 working days. If it needs longer, it tells the customer and the central bank why, and names a new date. The answer is in writing and explains the decision.

A payment that looks tied to virtual assets goes to a different body. Under the banking commission's guidelines of 12 November 2025, banks and Algérie Poste report it at once to the financial intelligence unit, and only to that unit. The customer is not told, and neither is the person who received the money. The same guidelines tell the firm to refuse the transaction when the indicators point to virtual assets. Law 25-10 of 24 July 2025 sets the penalty at two months to one year, a fine of 200,000 to 1,000,000 dinars, or both.

The sender of an electronic transfer can be followed. A central bank instruction of 24 November 2024 tells banks, financial institutions and Algérie Poste's financial services to carry the originator's verified name and account, or to keep that information available to the receiving firm and the authorities. On a cross-border transfer of 1,000 US dollars or more, an address or an identity number goes with it. The gendarmerie book for 2025 is 950 scam cases inside 3,064 cybercrime cases.

US$21.3m (DZD 2.81b) of it was returned to victims, 6.2% of the money lost.

In 2025 the urban police recorded 13,204 cybercrime cases, involving 7,815 people. The National Gendarmerie recorded 3,064 cybercrime cases, 7 percent more than in 2024, and 950 of them were scam cases. The two registers are kept apart. From January to October 2024 the gendarmerie had already handled more than 2,700 cybercrime cases, 15 percent more than a year earlier. Its web patrols opened 250 cases themselves that year and informed the prosecutor.

Banks and Algérie Poste file a different report. A payment that looks tied to virtual assets goes at once to the financial intelligence unit, under guidelines the banking commission issued on 12 November 2025, and the firm does not tell the customer. A dispute with the bank sits inside regulation 25-03 of 14 April 2025: the bank acknowledges the complaint at once and answers within 10 working days. In its communiqué of 5 November 2024, Algérie Poste named BaridiMob and ECCP as its only official apps and +ALG Poste+ as its only text sender, against fake pages and texts in its name.

The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications' 2025 campaign added an online reporting platform beside television, radio and leaflets, and included an update of BaridiMob. Scam cases at the gendarmerie moved from 370 in 2023 to 550 in 2024, and stood at 950 for the full year 2025. Contact with Facebook, as the cybercrime chief described it in November 2024, was limited to children and vulnerable people.

The figure on this page is 950 cyber fraud cases recorded by the National Gendarmerie in 2025. Lieutenant Colonel Tarek Toualbia, head of the judicial police department, gave that number in the annual review: 3,064 cybercrime cases, of which 1,412 were privacy violations, 950 were scam cases, 140 were attacks on data systems, and 149 had a minor as the victim. The cybercrime total was 7 percent higher than in 2024. Scam cases were 31 percent of it and privacy violations 46 percent. The urban police book is separate: 13,204 cybercrime cases in 2025 involving 7,815 people, and it is not added to the 950.

The specialist unit is the gendarmerie's central cybercrime service. In November 2024 its head, Lieutenant Colonel Hamri Touati, said more than 400 specialists were assigned, most of them computer engineers. Web patrols had taken up 250 cases in 2024 and informed the prosecutor. He named the offences seen most often as cyber harassment, scams and attacks on automated data systems, and said scam cases had risen from 370 cases to 550 between 2023 and 2024. Offenders often use servers abroad, which complicates the investigation.

From January to October 2024 the same service had already handled more than 2,700 cybercrime cases, 15 percent more than a year earlier. Touati put 80 percent of the cases then as tied to financial scams and 20 percent as the settling of personal scores. The 2025 review is the fuller book: privacy violations first, scam cases second.

On the gendarmerie's 2025 count, the largest class is a privacy violation, not a scam: 1,412 cases, 46 percent of 3,064. Scam cases are next, 950 cases, 31 percent. Attacks on data systems were 140 cases, and 149 cases had a minor as the victim, about 5 percent. The urban police recorded 13,204 cybercrime cases in the same year, involving 7,815 people. In November 2024 the head of the gendarmerie's cybercrime service described a caseload in which 80 percent of cases were tied to financial scams and 20 percent to settling personal scores, with scam cases themselves up from 370 cases to 550 between 2023 and 2024.

The financial scam, as that service described it, starts with an investment that promises a return, a job at a high salary, or a gift presented as free, often in a call or a message from a foreign number. The payment then leaves through a bank or a postal account. Algérie Poste's communiqué of 5 November 2024 describes the version that borrows the postal service's name: a fake page or a fake text, a request for Edahabia card details or the postal login, or a copy of BaridiMob from somewhere other than the official apps, BaridiMob and ECCP.

Virtual assets sit beside those scripts. Law 25-10 of 24 July 2025 bans buying, selling, holding, promoting or mining them. Guidelines of 12 November 2025 tell banks and Algérie Poste to reject transfers to platforms already identified as dealing in them, and to watch for words such as bitcoin and tether.

The defence ministry's information systems security agency holds the national plan. It published the 2025 to 2029 strategy on 3 March 2026, after presidential decree 25-321 of 30 December 2025 approved it. Decree 26-07 of 7 January 2026 then requires every public body to keep an information-security unit of its own, independent of the IT department and attached to the head of the body, to apply the strategy and map the risks.

Law 26-02 of 17 February 2026 creates one national electronic certification authority. A qualified electronic signature equals a handwritten one, and the information-security body certifies the device that creates it. Trust services for government users are free, unless a regulation sets an exception for some services. Law 25-10 of 24 July 2025 bans virtual assets, and guidelines of 12 November 2025 make banks and Algérie Poste reject transfers to identified crypto platforms and report them at once to the financial intelligence unit. A customer complaint is answered within 10 working days.

The numbers still rose. Gendarmerie cybercrime was up 7 percent, to 3,064 cases in 2025, of which 950 were scam cases, and the urban police recorded 13,204 cases involving 7,815 people. A payment the customer confirms is carried through. The transfer blocks apply to banks and Algérie Poste. Phone companies and social platforms sit outside those blocks, and Facebook contact in November 2024 covered children and vulnerable people.