Ola Olukoyede, the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), disclosed that terrorists in Nigeria are utilizing young cryptocurrency traders to fund their activities.
The programme, titled, “Multi-stakeholders’ national dialogue on preventing terrorism financing and violent extremism,” was held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotels, Abuja on Thursday.
Olukoyede said, “Some of you are aware of our activities in the area of investigating virtual currency trading and the like of cryptocurrencies.
“They are potential platforms to fund terrorism. A lot of us don’t understand that. Some of our discoveries during the investigation of some of these platforms were mind-boggling.
“We thought Binance was a major one. Yes, it was. We are prosecuting them. But there are other platforms we have discovered.
Many of these traders are unaware that their transactions are supporting terrorism. The EFCC recently froze 1,146 bank accounts that were being used as conduits for financing terrorism. Olukoyede made these remarks at an event organized by civil society groups in Abuja, discussing the prevention of terrorism financing and violent extremism.
He emphasized the importance of leveraging technology to track funds used for terrorism, citing insights from a contact at the US Federal Bureau of Investigation about the ability to trace dollar bills globally. Olukoyede stressed the necessity for Nigeria to implement similar technological measures to trace naira notes involved in terrorist financing.
