NFIU: Terror financiers using dead people’s bank accounts to fund attacks

The Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit has uncovered a crowdfunding network exploited to fund terrorism, with financiers opening bank accounts in women’s names and using phone numbers unregistered to true beneficiaries.

According to the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report, obtained by The PUNCH, foreign-based facilitators solicit donations via social media before funds are fragmented and moved through money mules to operatives.

SIMs registered to deceased persons are used to sever audit trails, while coded transaction narrations help evade bank filters.