fraud

Tax crimes and fraud accounted for 51 per cent of the financial crime intelligence reports disseminated by the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) to law-enforcement and regulatory authorities in 2025, highlighting persistent vulnerabilities in the country’s financial system.

The figures are contained in the NFIU’s 2025 Annual Report, which reviewed suspicious transactions, emerging criminal typologies and intelligence shared with domestic authorities for further investigation. Tax crimes involving direct and indirect taxes accounted for 30 per cent of intelligence reports disseminated across the top10 designated offences, making them the most prevalent category. Fraud followed with 21 per cent, bringing the combined share of both offences to 51 per cent.

Money laundering accounted for 15 per cent of the intelligence reports, while illegal trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances represented 10 per cent. Bribery and corruption, as well as terrorism and terrorist financing, each accounted for 8 per cent while illegal currency exchange trading and participation in an organised criminal group or racketeering each made up 3 per cent.

Trafficking in human beings and migrants, as well as smuggling and illegal migration, represented 1 per cent each.

The report reinforces concerns around tax compliance, illicit financial flows and increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes in Nigeria’s financial system. The NFIU said fraud remains a dominant predicate offence for other financial crimes, with risks rising from Ponzi schemes, fraudulent crowdfunding arrangements, cryptocurrency-enabled investment scams and hacking-related fraud.

The agency produces proactive and reactive intelligence reports through its Crime Records Information Management System.

Proactive intelligence is developed from analysis of disclosures filed by reporting entities, information received from international counterparts and material sourced from open and closed intelligence channels.

In 2025, the NFIU disseminated 1,398 proactive intelligence reports to domestic competent authorities for investigation.

Reactive intelligence reports are issued in response to requests from competent authorities to support live investigations. Such reports can provide financial details useful for identifying assets, tracing proceeds of crime and uncovering linked individuals or criminal networks.

The NFIU disseminated 2,033 reactive intelligence reports in 2025, bringing total intelligence reports shared with domestic authorities during the year to 3,431. Banks, financial technology firms and other reporting entities also stepped up reporting of potentially suspicious activities.

The NFIU received 42,082 Suspicious Transaction Reports during the year.

Deposit Money Banks accounted for 38,715 reports, or about 92 per cent of the total filings. Other reports came from capital-market operators, insurance companies, other financial institutions, designated non-financial businesses and professions, and virtual asset service providers.

The level of reporting reflects the banking industry’s central role in monitoring potentially illicit financial flows, but it also points to the scale of suspicious activity passing through the formal financial system.

Nigeria’s financial crime challenge is compounded by substantial illicit financial flows. Doris Uzoka-Anite, Minister of State for Finance, said Nigeria loses an estimated $17.72 billion annually to illicit financial flows. She said the losses weaken government’s capacity to finance critical infrastructure and deliver essential public services.

Across Africa, illicit financial flows are estimated at $88.6 billion annually, with Nigeria accounting for about 20 per cent of the continent’s losses, according to the minister.

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