The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has uncovered a sophisticated crowdfunding ecosystem exploited by foreign-based facilitators to raise and channel funds to terrorist operatives in Nigeria.
The details were disclosed in the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report, obtained from a senior official, which outlines how illicit networks manipulate digital platforms, identity systems, and banking controls to fund insurgent operations.
In its risk and crime analysis for the year, the agency warned of an interconnected threat landscape where financial crime, technology, and cross-border activity collide. Fraud remains a dominant predicate offence, which is fuelled by cryptocurrency scams, hacking, and fintech onboarding loopholes, while public sector vulnerabilities persist through procurement flaws and the diversion of state and local government funds via finance officers’ accounts.
According to the report, foreign facilitators launch social media campaigns claiming to support educational or humanitarian causes, using encrypted applications like Telegram and Signal to share links to PayPal pages and standard bank accounts. Sympathisers make small donations between $50 and $500 to evade automated anti-money laundering (AML) triggers.
The funds are pooled into a master account managed by a senior operative living legally abroad, who then fractures the capital into sub-threshold payments. These are routed via International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs) and remittance apps to “money mules” in Nigeria—including students, small-business owners, and relatives. Upon arrival, the money is converted to cash, sent via mobile banking to field commanders, or used to purchase dual-use items such as satellite internet gear, fertilisers, and motorcycles.
Beyond digital crowdfunding, the unit exposed the widespread use of gender-based proxy accounts to distance illicit capital from real operatives. Terrorist commanders open accounts in women’s names, exploiting cultural norms that render female associates, sisters, and wives less suspicious to authorities. This operates as a form of identity laundering: men retain full control of the ATM cards, PINs, and mobile banking credentials, while the women often remain completely unaware of the transaction volumes.
To further break the audit trail, facilitators link mobile banking apps and account alerts to pre-registered SIM cards, numbers belonging to deceased individuals, or SIMs tied to gender proxies. This disconnects bank accounts from genuine Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs), ensuring that flagged phone numbers trace back to unrelated individuals while real operators remain anonymous.
The NFIU also revealed how terrorist cells handle transaction narrations. Groups such as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) function like “shadow states” with strict internal accounting requirements. Field commanders use precise, professional descriptions for high-frequency, single-source logistics payments so expense accounts can be audited by central financial controllers. Conversely, other cells switch languages or use secret codes, alphanumeric strings, and innocuous words to bypass automated bank keyword filters targeting terms like “Arms” or “Jihad”.
The NFIU confirmed that its analytical findings have been translated into executive alerts, restricted advisories, and strategic intelligence products to assist competent authorities and shape policy responses.