The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) received more than 28.1 million reports on transactions involving politically exposed persons (PEPs) in 2025, highlighting the scale of compliance by financial institutions with anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regulations.
The NFIU, in its 2025 Annual Report, revealed that reporting entities submitted a total of 28,133,909 PEP-related reports during the year.
The agency said the reports were part of regular regulatory disclosures required to financial institutions and other reporting entities to strengthen monitoring of transactions involving persons considered politically exposed.
Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) accounted for the vast majority of reports, filing 7,263,557 reports in the first quarter, 5,658,079 in the second quarter, 6,235,585 in the third quarter, and 8,225,572 in the fourth quarter.
Other Financial Institutions (OIF) presented 12 reports in the first quarter, 692 in the second, 104,565 in the third and 617,286 in the fourth quarter.
The Capital Market Intermediaries (CMI), for their part, presented 3,986 reports in the first quarter, 17,016 in the second, 3,345 in the third and 4,214 in the fourth quarter.
Virtual asset service providers (VASPs) did not record PEP-related reports during the period.
The NFIU said the volume of reports reflected extensive enforcement activity and ongoing monitoring of transactions associated with PEPs.
Beyond PEP-related disclosures, the agency said it received several reports, including threshold-based disclosures, suspicious transaction reports and suspicious activity reports, as well as regulatory filings related to anti-money laundering, countering terrorist financing and counter-proliferation financing (AML/CFT/CPF) enforcement.
The NFIU revealed that it received 41,716,214 currency transaction reports (CTR), 42,082 suspicious transaction reports (STR), and 10,513 suspicious activity reports (SAR) during the review period.
It said it worked closely with the designated supervisory authorities, including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Special Anti-Money Laundering Control Unit (SCUML), to ensure compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
The revelations come against the backdrop of NFIU’s growing concerns about sophisticated methods allegedly used by terrorist financiers to conceal illicit funds.
The agency identified the use of bank accounts and phone numbers of deceased people, proxy accounts opened in the names of women, fraudulent crowdfunding networks, pre-registered SIM cards and digital fintech platforms as emerging threats.
According to the NFIU, criminal networks also exploit gaps between SIM card registration and bank verification number records to conceal the identities of people controlling illicit funds.
The agency urged stronger identity verification, better monitoring of financial technology platforms and better information sharing between financial institutions, telecommunications companies, regulators and security agencies.
He said intelligence gathered from these reports had been converted into targeted advisories, executive alerts and strategic intelligence products to support investigations and policy responses.
The NFIU emphasized that continued adaptation would be required to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated financial crimes and terrorist financing techniques.
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