The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has uncovered an emerging crowdfunding network being used to raise and channel funds to terrorist groups operating in Nigeria.
The Unit also identified the use of women’s bank accounts and telephone numbers not registered to actual account holders or beneficiaries as emerging techniques being deployed by terrorist financiers to conceal illicit transactions.
The disclosures were contained in the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report, obtained by The PUNCH.
According to the report, the crowdfunding network involves foreign-based facilitators who use social media platforms to solicit donations under the guise of humanitarian relief or educational support before moving the funds through several layers to terrorist operatives in Nigeria.
The NFIU said hundreds of sympathisers were encouraged to make relatively small donations, typically between $50 and $500, through PayPal pages or conventional bank accounts.
The Unit noted that the amounts were deliberately kept low to reduce the likelihood of triggering automated anti-money laundering alerts.
The report stated that a foreign-based facilitator would launch social media campaigns presenting the fundraising as humanitarian or educational assistance, while encrypted messaging platforms such as Telegram and Signal were used to distribute links to convincing payment pages and bank accounts.
Once the donations accumulated, the funds were consolidated into a “master account” controlled by a senior member of the network who was legally resident abroad.
The NFIU said the account subsequently became the hub for transferring the money to Nigeria.
Rather than sending large amounts in a single transaction, the funds were fragmented into dozens of smaller payments and transferred through International Money Transfer Operators and remittance applications to a network of money mules in Nigeria.
The Unit identified students, small-business owners and relatives among those allegedly used as intermediaries.
According to the report, the strategy was designed to remain below reporting thresholds while making it more difficult for investigators to establish the origin and destination of the funds.
Upon receiving the money, the intermediaries allegedly converted some of it to cash or used the funds to purchase dual-use items, including motorcycles, fertilisers and satellite internet equipment.
Other funds were transferred through mobile banking channels to logistics managers and field operatives.
The NFIU described this stage as the integration of funds into terrorist operational financing.
Women’s Accounts Used As Proxies
The financial intelligence agency also identified gender-based proxy accounts as another emerging method used to conceal terrorist financing.
The report said terrorist financiers were opening bank accounts in women’s names while male commanders or logistics managers secretly controlled the accounts.
The Unit said wives, sisters and female associates were allegedly used as fronts to distance illicit funds from the actual operatives.
According to the NFIU, the method effectively amounted to “identity laundering”, with men controlling ATM cards, mobile banking credentials and PINs linked to accounts registered in women’s names.
In some cases, the women whose identities were used as fronts were reportedly unaware of the transactions taking place or the volume of funds moving through their accounts.
Unregistered Phone Numbers Used
The NFIU further revealed that terrorist facilitators were using telephone numbers that were not registered to the actual account holders or beneficiaries for mobile banking and transaction alerts.
The Unit said pre-registered SIM cards, SIMs registered to deceased persons and telephone numbers linked to gender-based proxies were among the methods being used.
According to the report, the practice was intended to weaken the connection between bank accounts, telephone numbers and Bank Verification Numbers, thereby making it difficult for investigators to trace the real beneficiaries of suspicious transactions.
The NFIU said the use of unrelated telephone numbers could cause investigators to trace transactions to individuals who had no connection to the underlying criminal activity.
Coded Transaction Narrations
The financial intelligence agency also identified the use of detailed or coded transaction descriptions to disguise terrorist financing activities.
According to the report, terrorist cells, particularly those linked to the Islamic State West Africa Province, use precise transaction narrations as part of an internal accounting system.
The NFIU said frequent logistics-related payments with detailed descriptions were being made from single sources to multiple recipients, suggesting an organised financial structure within the terrorist networks.
The Unit noted that apparently legitimate transaction descriptions could serve as an internal audit trail for terrorist organisations.
However, it said some facilitators deliberately used innocuous words, secret codes and alphanumeric strings to conceal the true purpose of transactions.
The codes were sometimes switched between languages to evade automated banking filters designed to identify suspicious keywords associated with terrorism.
The NFIU said the practice allowed illicit transfers to continue while making it more difficult for financial institutions to identify the actual purpose of transactions.
Broader Financial Crime Threat
Beyond terrorist financing, the NFIU said its risk and crime analysis identified an increasingly interconnected threat landscape involving financial crime, technology and cross-border activity.
The Unit said fraud remained a dominant predicate offence, with notable growth in Ponzi schemes, fraudulent crowdfunding arrangements, cryptocurrency-enabled investment scams and hacking-related fraud.
It said criminals were increasingly exploiting gaps in fintech onboarding processes, including tiered accounts with minimal identification requirements.
Digital platforms were also being used to recruit victims rapidly and move illicit funds.
The report further identified 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 were identified as another significant risk area, while the use of cash transactions was said to complicate audit trails and efforts to trace illicit assets.
The NFIU said its analysis had informed targeted advisories, executive alerts and strategic intelligence products provided to competent authorities, reporting entities and policymakers.
Experts Demand Stronger Financial Tracking
Reacting to the development, security expert Chidi Omeje called on Nigeria’s security and financial intelligence institutions to strengthen their strategies for tracking illicit financial flows.
Omeje said criminal networks were constantly developing new methods to circumvent existing security systems.
“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 urged security agencies, including the Nigeria Police Force and Department of State Services, as well as financial regulatory authorities, to improve their monitoring of suspicious financial transactions.
“The state must ultimately deal with them. They must follow the money trail to monitor these movements and effectively tackle the situation,” Omeje added.
He stressed that intelligence-driven financial investigations were critical to disrupting the activities of terrorist and criminal organisations.
Another security analyst, Lawrence Alobi, called for stronger intelligence sharing between security agencies and financial institutions.
Alobi said improved information gathering would help authorities identify criminals attempting to evade detection through proxy accounts and fraudulent identities.
“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 banks to strengthen their customer verification systems and cooperate more closely with security agencies.
“Security agencies need to work with the banks and also warn them. Any bank found to have connived or aided this act should be sanctioned,” Alobi said.
He further called for stricter identity verification within the banking sector to prevent individuals from operating accounts on behalf of hidden beneficiaries.
“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.
Intelligence agencies must go the extra mile to hold banks accountable for any loopholes exploited within their system,” he added.
The NFIU’s findings highlight the growing sophistication of terrorist financing networks and the increasing role of digital platforms, remittance services, proxy identities and financial technology in moving illicit funds.
The revelations also underscore the importance of closer cooperation between financial institutions, intelligence agencies and security authorities in tracing money flows and disrupting terrorist operations before funds are converted into operational resources.