The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit has uncovered new methods allegedly being used by terrorist financiers to raise and move money, including crowdfunding campaigns, proxy bank accounts and telephone lines registered in the names of deceased persons.
The agency disclosed this in its 2025 Annual Report, which detailed emerging techniques being employed to conceal illicit financial transactions and frustrate efforts to trace the real beneficiaries.
According to the report, foreign-based facilitators have been using social media platforms to solicit small donations under the guise of humanitarian assistance or educational support before routing the proceeds through several layers to terrorist operatives in Nigeria.
The NFIU said donors were typically encouraged to contribute between $50 and $500 through PayPal and conventional bank accounts, with the relatively small amounts allegedly designed to avoid triggering automated anti-money laundering alerts.
It explained that the funds were later consolidated into a master account controlled by a senior member of the network based abroad.
Once a specified amount had accumulated, the money was allegedly split into numerous smaller transfers and sent through international money transfer operators and remittance platforms to a network of money mules in Nigeria.
The agency identified students, small business owners and relatives among those allegedly used as intermediaries.
It said the funds could subsequently be withdrawn as cash or used to purchase items such as motorcycles, fertilisers and satellite internet equipment before being transferred to logistics coordinators and field operatives.
The NFIU also identified the use of women’s bank accounts as another emerging method of disguising terrorist financing.
According to the agency, male commanders and logistics managers sometimes secretly control accounts opened in the names of wives, sisters or other female associates, thereby distancing the illicit funds from the actual beneficiaries.
The report said some account holders might not even be aware of the volume or nature of transactions conducted through their accounts.
The agency further raised concerns over the use of telephone numbers that are not registered to the actual owners of bank accounts or beneficiaries for mobile banking and transaction alerts.
It said pre-registered SIM cards, telephone lines linked to deceased persons and numbers associated with proxy account holders were being used to undermine the connection between bank accounts, SIM cards and Bank Verification Numbers.
The NFIU noted that such practices could make it difficult for investigators to establish the identity of the individuals controlling the accounts and moving the funds.
The agency also reported that terrorist networks were adopting sophisticated methods to conceal the purpose of transactions through coded or seemingly harmless descriptions.
It said some cells, including those linked to the Islamic State West Africa Province, used detailed transaction narrations as part of their internal financial accounting, while others relied on codes, innocuous expressions, alphanumeric combinations and different languages to conceal the true purpose of payments.
Beyond terrorism financing, the NFIU said its analysis revealed an increasingly interconnected threat involving financial crime, technology and cross-border transactions.
It identified fraud as a major underlying offence, with rising cases involving Ponzi schemes, fraudulent crowdfunding, cryptocurrency investment scams and hacking-related fraud.
The agency said criminal networks were exploiting weaknesses in fintech onboarding systems, particularly accounts requiring limited identification, to recruit victims and move illicit funds rapidly.
The report also identified weaknesses in the management of public funds, noting that state and local government resources could be diverted through accounts belonging to finance officers and third parties.
Procurement processes and cash-based transactions were also described as areas of concern because they could make financial auditing and the tracing of illicit assets more difficult.
Reacting to the findings, a security expert, Chidi Omeje, urged security and financial intelligence agencies to strengthen their strategies for tracking the increasingly sophisticated methods employed by criminal networks.
Omeje said security agencies must follow financial trails and improve their ability to identify and disrupt illicit transactions.
He called on the Nigeria Police Force, Department of State Services and financial regulatory authorities to intensify efforts to monitor suspicious transactions and stay ahead of criminal networks.
Another security analyst, Lawrence Alobi, called for stronger intelligence sharing between security agencies and financial institutions.
Alobi urged banks to strengthen customer identification and verification procedures to prevent their platforms from being exploited through proxy accounts.
He also called for sanctions against financial institutions found to have knowingly facilitated illicit transactions.
According to him, security agencies must deepen their collaboration with banks and other financial institutions to identify loopholes being exploited by criminal networks.
He stressed that every bank account should be linked to a properly verified individual to prevent criminals from hiding behind proxy identities.