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The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit has uncovered an emerging crowdfunding network allegedly being used to raise and channel funds for terrorist operations in Nigeria.
The NFIU also revealed that terrorist financiers were opening bank accounts in women’s names and using telephone numbers that were not registered to account holders or actual beneficiaries for mobile banking and transaction alerts.
The disclosures were contained in the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report obtained by The PUNCH from a top official.
According to the report, foreign-based facilitators were using social media platforms to solicit donations under the guise of humanitarian relief or educational support before transferring the funds through multiple layers to terrorist operatives in Nigeria.
The NFIU said hundreds of sympathisers were encouraged to make relatively small donations ranging from $50 to $500 through PayPal pages or conventional bank accounts.
The report said the amounts were deliberately kept below thresholds likely to trigger automated anti-money laundering alerts.
It stated, “The following is a case study on Crowdfunding Network identified during the year: A foreign-based facilitator runs social-media campaigns claiming humanitarian relief or educational support and uses encrypted apps (Telegram, Signal) to share links to convincing PayPal pages or standard bank accounts.
“Hundreds of sympathiser donors contribute $50–$500 each, amounts small enough to avoid most automated AML alerts.”
The NFIU said the funds were subsequently pooled into a “master account” controlled by a senior member of the network living legally abroad.
When the funds reached a certain threshold, the account became the hub for onward transfers, according to the report.
The money was then broken into dozens of smaller payments and transferred through International Money Transfer Operators and remittance applications to a network of money mules in Nigeria.
The NFIU identified students, small-business owners and relatives among those allegedly used as money mules, noting that the strategy was designed to avoid reporting thresholds and obscure the origin and destination of the funds.
It said the money was either 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 Unit described this as the final stage of integrating the funds into terrorist operational financing.
NFIU Logo Credit: Punch
Terrorists Use Women’s Accounts As Proxies
The NFIU also identified gender-based proxy accounts as another emerging terrorist financing technique.
According to the report, terrorist financiers were opening bank accounts in women’s names while male commanders or logistics managers secretly controlled the accounts.
The Unit said the financiers exploited cultural assumptions that women were less likely to attract suspicion from authorities.
It said wives, sisters and female associates were allegedly used as fronts to distance illicit funds from the actual operatives.
“This tactic functions as identity laundering: women’s accounts are managed by men who hold ATM cards, mobile-banking credentials, and PINs, while the women often remain unaware of the transactions and volumes,” the report stated.
The NFIU further revealed that terrorist facilitators were using telephone numbers that were not registered to account holders or actual beneficiaries for mobile banking and transaction alerts.
According to the Unit, pre-registered SIM cards, SIMs registered to deceased persons and numbers linked to gender-based proxies were being used to break the connection between bank accounts, SIM cards and Bank Verification Numbers.
It said the tactic could make it difficult for investigators to trace transactions to the actual facilitators.
Terrorists Use Coded Transaction Narrations
The NFIU also uncovered sophisticated methods allegedly being used to disguise terrorist transactions through detailed or coded payment narrations.
It said cells, particularly those linked to the Islamic State West Africa Province, used precise transaction descriptions as part of an internal accounting system.
According to the report, frequent logistics-related payments with detailed narrations were often transferred from a single source to multiple recipients, suggesting a structured financial system within the terrorist network.
The Unit said some facilitators, however, used innocuous words, secret codes and alphanumeric strings in transaction descriptions to conceal the purpose of payments.
It added that some facilitators switched between languages to evade automated banking filters designed to flag terms associated with terrorism.
The NFIU said its risk and crime analysis for the year revealed an increasingly interconnected threat landscape involving financial crime, technology and cross-border activities.
It noted that fraud remained a dominant predicate offence, with increasing cases of Ponzi schemes, fraudulent crowdfunding arrangements, cryptocurrency-enabled investment scams and hacking-related fraud.
The Unit said such schemes increasingly exploited fintech onboarding gaps, including tiered accounts requiring minimal identification, while digital platforms were being used to rapidly recruit victims and move funds.
It 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.
According to the NFIU, procurement processes and cash transactions remained significant risk areas because cash usage complicated audit trails and efforts to trace illicit assets.
The Unit said its findings had been converted into targeted advisories, executive alerts and strategic intelligence products to support relevant authorities, reporting entities and policy responses.
Experts Call For Stronger Financial Tracking
A security expert, Chidi Omeje, urged Nigeria’s security and financial intelligence institutions to strengthen their strategies to counter the increasing sophistication of non-state actors.
Omeje said criminal networks were constantly developing new methods to circumvent existing security systems.
He called on agencies including the Nigeria Police Force, the Department of State Services and financial regulatory authorities responsible for monitoring banking transactions to intensify efforts to track 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.
“The state must ultimately deal with them. They must follow the money trail to monitor these movements and effectively tackle the situation.”
Another security analyst, Lawrence Alobi, called for greater intelligence sharing between security agencies and financial institutions.
Alobi said agencies needed to strengthen information gathering to identify criminals attempting to evade detection through fraudulent account arrangements.
“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 also urged financial institutions to strengthen identity verification procedures and ensure that accounts were not operated by undisclosed proxies.
“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 added.
