Crimes
By Sumaila Ogbaje
Abuja, Sept. 1, 2026 (NAN) The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has intensified the use of financial intelligence to disrupt terrorism financing, money laundering and organised criminal networks.
The Head of Strategic Communications at the NFIU, Aishatu Bantam, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at a joint security news conference, organised by the Office of the National Security Adviser.
Bantam said the unit was increasingly tracing the financial footprints of terrorists, kidnappers, drug traffickers, cybercriminals and other organised criminal groups.
She said the strategy was designed to complement conventional security operations by identifying financiers, facilitators, beneficiaries and criminal assets.
According to her, financial intelligence remain critical to dismantling criminal networks because their operations ultimately depend on access to and movement of illicit funds.
Bantam said the NFIU had strengthened collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force and other security and law-enforcement agencies to ensure that complex cases involving terrorism financing and illicit financial flows received specialised financial investigation.
She said the unit had also deepened cooperation with regulatory and law-enforcement institutions to identify suspicious transactions and vulnerabilities within Nigeria’s financial system.
Bantam said the NFIU’s 2025 analysis showed the scale of financial intelligence available to investigators, with reporting entities submitting more than 41.7 million Currency Transaction Reports.
She said 42,082 Suspicious Transaction Reports and 10,513 Suspicious Activity Reports were also submitted during the year.
According to her, tax crimes and fraud accounted for 51 per cent of intelligence reports disseminated across the top 10 designated offences.
Bantam said NFIU analysis had also identified emerging terrorism-financing methods involving proxy and mule accounts, pre-registered SIM cards, crowdfunding, social media and fragmented remittance transactions.
She said the findings had reinforced the need for stronger customer identification, sanctions screening and intelligence-led monitoring of financial activities.
The spokesperson said Nigeria’s financial intelligence capability received international recognition when the NFIU and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) won the UNODC-World Bank-Egmont Group Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative Award.
She said the award recognised the successful collaboration between the two agencies in tracing and recovering illicit assets.
Bantam said the NFIU had also strengthened operational partnerships with the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency, the United States and other international partners.
She said the engagements focused on intelligence sharing, terrorism financing, transnational financial crimes, emerging criminal typologies and specialised capacity development.
She said the NFIU was also working with the Nigeria Police Force to strengthen the referral of cases requiring financial investigation, particularly terrorism, banditry and crude-oil theft.
Bantam said the unit’s participation in the validation of Nigeria’s updated National Risk Assessment had further strengthened the country’s ability to identify and respond to emerging money-laundering and terrorism-financing threats.
She said the NFIU would continue to strengthen inter-agency cooperation and international partnerships to ensure that criminals could not hide the proceeds of their activities within Nigeria’s financial system.
Bantam said the priority remained to “identify the money, expose the networks, disrupt the financing and support the recovery of criminal proceeds”. (NAN)
OYS/FAK
========
Edited by Funmilayo Adeyemi
(function(){try{var u=”https:\/\/nannews.com.ng\/wp-json\/nan\/v2\/track\/pageurl”,p=888770;if(navigator.sendBeacon){var d=new FormData();d.append(“pid”,p);d.append(“url”,location.href);navigator.sendBeacon(u,d);}else{var x=new XMLHttpRequest();x.open(“POST”,u,true);x.setRequestHeader(“Content-Type”,”application/x-www-form-urlencoded”);x.send(“pid=”+p+”&url=”+encodeURIComponent(location.href));}}catch(e){}})();
Source link
About the Author
