The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has uncovered an emerging crowdfunding network allegedly being exploited to raise and channel funds to terrorist groups operating in Nigeria.
The financial intelligence agency also identified the use of women’s bank accounts and telephone numbers registered to third parties as emerging techniques for concealing the identities of terrorist financiers and beneficiaries.
The findings are contained in the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report, obtained by The PUNCH from a senior official.
According to the report, the crowdfunding scheme involves foreign-based facilitators using social media platforms to solicit donations under the guise of humanitarian relief or educational support before routing the proceeds through multiple layers to terrorist operatives in Nigeria.
The NFIU said the facilitators typically encouraged hundreds of sympathisers to make relatively small donations, ranging from $50 to $500, through PayPal pages or conventional bank accounts. The amounts, it said, were deliberately kept low to reduce the likelihood of triggering automated anti-money laundering alerts.
The funds were subsequently consolidated in a “master account” controlled by a senior member of the network based legally abroad.
“When the pool reaches a threshold, that account becomes the hub for onward movement,” the report stated.
The NFIU said the money was then broken into dozens of smaller transfers and sent through International Money Transfer Operators and remittance applications to a network of money mules in Nigeria.
Students, small-business owners and relatives were among those identified as potential mules, with the method designed to avoid reporting thresholds and obscure the source and destination of the funds.
Upon receipt, the funds could be converted to cash, used to purchase dual-use items such as motorcycles, fertilisers and satellite internet equipment, or transferred through mobile banking channels to logistics managers and field operatives, the report said.
The NFIU described the final stage as the integration of the funds into terrorist operational financing.
Women Used as Proxies
The Unit also identified the use of gender-based proxy accounts as another emerging terrorist financing technique.
It said terrorist financiers were opening accounts in women’s names while male commanders or logistics managers secretly controlled them.
According to the report, wives, sisters and female associates were sometimes used as fronts to distance illicit funds from the actual operatives.
The NFIU described the practice as “identity laundering”, explaining that male operatives could possess ATM cards, mobile banking credentials and PINs linked to accounts held in women’s names, while the account holders might be unaware of the transactions and the volumes involved.
The agency also identified the use of telephone numbers that were not registered to account holders or the actual beneficiaries for mobile banking and transaction alerts.
It said pre-registered SIM cards, numbers registered to deceased persons and SIMs linked to gender-based proxies were being used to weaken the link between bank accounts, telephone numbers and Bank Verification Numbers.
According to the report, the practice could make it difficult for investigators to establish the identity of the individuals controlling suspicious accounts.
Coded Transaction Narrations
The NFIU also reported that terrorist financiers were increasingly disguising transactions through detailed or coded payment narrations.
It said cells, particularly those linked to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), sometimes used precise transaction descriptions as part of an internal accounting system.
The agency said analysts had observed frequent logistics-related payments with detailed narrations originating from a single source and sent to multiple recipients, suggesting a structured financial system within the network.
At the same time, some facilitators reportedly used innocuous terms, secret codes and alphanumeric combinations, sometimes switching between languages, to conceal the purpose of transactions and evade automated bank filters.
The report said the practice was intended to prevent financial institutions from detecting keywords associated with terrorism and other illicit activities.
Beyond terrorism financing, the NFIU said its analysis for the year revealed an increasingly interconnected threat landscape involving financial crime, technology and cross-border activity.
It identified fraud as a dominant predicate offence, with rising cases involving Ponzi schemes, fraudulent crowdfunding arrangements, cryptocurrency-enabled investment scams and hacking-related fraud, including compromised social media and messaging accounts.
The agency said criminals were increasingly exploiting weaknesses in fintech onboarding procedures, including tiered accounts requiring limited identification, while digital platforms allowed them to recruit victims and move funds rapidly.
The report also highlighted vulnerabilities in public-sector financial management, including the diversion of state and local government funds through accounts belonging to finance officers and associated third parties.
Procurement processes and cash transactions were identified as significant risk areas, with the NFIU noting that extensive use of cash could make it more difficult to establish audit trails and trace illicit assets.
The agency said its findings had informed targeted advisories, executive alerts and strategic intelligence products provided to competent authorities, reporting entities and policymakers.
Experts Seek Stronger Financial Surveillance
Security expert Chidi Omeje urged Nigeria’s security and financial intelligence agencies to strengthen their strategies to counter increasingly sophisticated methods employed by criminal and terrorist networks.
Omeje said criminal groups were constantly developing new ways to circumvent existing security measures and called on the Nigeria Police Force, the Department of State Services and financial regulatory authorities to intensify efforts to identify and disrupt illicit financial flows.
“Every single day, these guys grow in sophistication and desperation, and we must also devise means to bring them to their knees,” he said.
He stressed the importance of following financial trails to identify the movement of illicit funds, describing financial intelligence as a critical component of efforts to combat terrorism and other forms of organised crime.
Another security analyst, Lawrence Alobi, called for stronger intelligence sharing between security agencies and closer cooperation with financial institutions.
Alobi said improved information gathering would help authorities identify attempts by criminals to evade detection through fraudulent or proxy accounts.
“It behoves us now, the security agencies, to intensify their intelligence sharing and information gathering, because it is through information that we can get some of these things,” he said.
He urged banks to strengthen their verification procedures and warned that financial institutions found to have deliberately facilitated illicit transactions should face sanctions.
“The banks themselves must sit up and ensure they properly verify every individual’s identity so that there is a real, verifiable person behind every account, not just someone acting by proxy,” Alobi said.
He added that intelligence agencies should intensify oversight of the banking sector and hold institutions accountable for vulnerabilities that could be exploited by criminal networks.
