Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC has implicated a major commercial bank, six fintech companies, and several microfinance banks in large-scale fraud, accusing them of allowing criminals to move NGN 162 B USD 114 M in suspicious cryptocurrency transactions with no oversight.
The anti-graft agency said the institutions failed basic financial security checks, enabling fraudsters to launder money through the system during the 2024/2025 financial year. In one extreme case, a single individual operated 960 bank accounts at one institution, all allegedly used for fraud.
The EFCC linked the banking lapses to two major scams that defrauded hundreds of thousands of Nigerians. The first was an airline ticket discount scheme. A syndicate, allegedly led by a foreign national, advertised heavily discounted flights. Victims were tricked into making payments that appeared to go directly to an airline, but the payment module was designed to drain their entire bank accounts. Over 700 people lost an estimated NGN 651 M to this scam.
