The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has uncovered emerging methods being used by terrorist financiers to raise and move funds, including crowdfunding, proxy bank accounts registered in women’s names and telephone numbers linked to deceased persons.
The disclosures are contained in the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report.
According to the report, foreign-based facilitators are increasingly exploiting 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 crowdfunding networks typically attracted hundreds of sympathisers who contributed between $50 and $500 through PayPal pages or conventional bank accounts. The relatively small amounts were allegedly designed to remain below automated anti-money laundering alert thresholds.
The report said the funds were later pooled into a “master account” controlled by a senior member of the network living legally abroad. Once the funds reached a certain threshold, the account became the hub for onward transfers.
The money was subsequently fragmented into dozens of smaller payments and sent through International Money Transfer Operators and remittance applications to money mules in Nigeria, including students, small-business owners and relatives.
According to the NFIU, the funds were then converted to cash or used to purchase dual-use items such as motorcycles, fertilisers and satellite internet equipment, while some were transferred through mobile banking channels to logistics managers and field operatives.
The Unit also identified the use of gender-based proxy accounts as an emerging terrorist financing technique.
It said terrorists were opening bank accounts in women’s names while male commanders or logistics managers secretly controlled the accounts, exploiting cultural perceptions that women were less likely to attract suspicion from authorities.
The report noted that wives, sisters and female associates were sometimes used as fronts to distance illicit funds from the actual beneficiaries. In some cases, the women were allegedly unaware of the transactions, while male operatives controlled ATM cards, mobile banking credentials and PINs.
The NFIU further revealed that terrorist facilitators were using telephone numbers that were not registered to the account holders or 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 sever the connection between bank accounts, telephone numbers and Bank Verification Numbers.
The Unit said the practice made it difficult for investigators to trace transactions to the real facilitators because flagged telephone numbers could lead to unrelated individuals.
The report also identified the use of coded or highly detailed transaction narrations as another method employed by terrorist networks to disguise their financial activities.
It said cells, particularly those linked to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), used precise and professional-sounding transaction descriptions as part of an internal accounting system.
According to the NFIU, frequent logistics-related payments containing detailed narrations were often transferred from a single source to multiple recipients, indicating a structured financial system within the terrorist network.
The Unit said the seemingly legitimate transaction descriptions could serve as an internal audit trail, enabling field commanders to account for expenditures to central financial controllers while making the transactions appear less suspicious to external observers. (Punch)
