Interpol's Web site was taken down just hours after it announced that 25 suspected members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous have been arrested across South America and Europe.

Interpol on Tuesday announced that 25 suspected members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous have been arrested across South America and Europe.

But just hours after making the announcement, the international police agency’s website was targeted in a cyberattack, according to reports. Hackers affiliated with Anonymous took credit on Twitter for the attack, which left Interpol’s Web site unreachable for a short period on Tuesday.

Interpol said the arrests were carried out in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain as part of an effort dubbed "Operation Unmask". The international law enforcement operation was launched in mid-February following a series of cyberattacks which struck the Colombian Ministry of Defence and presidential websites, Chile’s National Library, the Endesa electric company in Chile, among others.

Police seized around 250 items of IT equipment and mobile phones during searches of 40 premises across 15 cities, Interpol said. In addition, authorities seized payment cards and cash belonging to some of the suspected hackers, who are aged 17 to 40.

National law enforcement officers in the four participating countries carried out the arrests with the support of Interpol's Latin American Working Group of Experts on Information Technology Crime, which facilitated intelligence sharing.

"This operation shows that crime in the virtual world does have real consequences for those involved, and that the Internet cannot be seen as a safe haven for criminal activity, no matter where it originates or where it is targeted," Bernd Rossbach, Intepol’s acting executive director of police services, said in a statement.

The arrests come amidst reports that the via a cyberattack. Anonymous, however, says the claims are just fear-mongering.