Terrorists use cryptocurrency traders to fund terrorism – EFCC Chairman

The anti-graft agency chairman said that Nigeria needs to adopt new technology to enhance the nation’s currency tracking.

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has revealed that unknown to young crytocurrency traders in Nigeria, terrorists use their trade as a means to fund terrorism in Nigeria.

According to him, some of the people who receive money to trade in cryptocurrencies do not know that their financiers are sponsors of terrorism.

He added that of some of the 1,146 banks that were recently frozen by the anti-graft agency were conduits for terrorism funding.

This, and some other things he said at a recent event organized by some Civil Society Organizations in Abuja.

The event titled “Multi-stakeholders’ national dialogue on preventing terrorism financing and violent extremism,” was held on Wednesday at the Transcorp Hilton Hotels, Abuja.

“Some of you are aware of our activities in the area of investigating virtual currency trading and the likes of cryptocurrencies,” he revealed.

“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.

“They used some of these young men. Some of them don’t know that the people who gave them money to trade are people who fund terrorism.”

The EFCC boss also said that there is a need for Nigeria to adopt technology in tracking money used to fund terrorism in Nigeria.

He spoke of his recent conversation with a friend at the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who revealed to him that dollar bills across the world can be tracked with technology.

“It is important for us to adopt the use of technology,” he said.

“I was comparing notes with an assistant director in the FBI — a friend of mine. He said: ‘My brother, from our systems in the US, we can track every printed dollar anywhere in the world’.”

He added that this a stage Nigeria must get to that stage where technology can be deployed to track naira notes.