The head of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency says corrupt politicians are now using cryptocurrencies and other digital money to hide stolen wealth and avoid getting caught.
Ola Olukoyede, who chairs the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), spoke in Abuja at an event marking Africa Anti-Corruption Day. He said illegal money flows are a major threat to Africa’s development, mainly because of money laundering and growing digital asset fraud.
“These flows are coming from diverse criminal activities, with money laundering ranking as the highest,” he said.
“Another rising criminal engagement that has the potential to outpace even money laundering on the continent is virtual assets and investment scams.”
Olukoyede explained that while cryptocurrencies and digital tokens are not criminal by themselves, fraudsters are using them to store and move stolen money without law enforcement agencies noticing.
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“Our findings showed that fraudulent politicians are already perfecting schemes and hiding their loot in cryptocurrencies to beat the investigative dragnets of anti-corruption agencies,” he said.
“Stolen funds and unexplained wealth are being warehoused in wallets, and payments for services are being done through this window.”
He warned that digital investment scams, including Ponzi schemes, are spreading quickly across Africa and targeting unsuspecting investors.
“Fraudsters are exploiting vulnerabilities of desperate investors to defraud them through various dishonest schemes,” he said.
“Every exploitation of investors in any guise is considered a fraudulent act.”
The EFCC chairman pointed to his agency’s investigation and prosecution of the CBEX scam as an example of their work in fighting these crimes through training and intelligence gathering.
“We are ahead in every material sense, and there are enormous proofs of operational successes in this regard,” he said.
However, he said that careless investors continue to help fuel the scams.
“The investing public do inadvertently aid fraudulent practices through lack of due diligence on schemes advertised to them,” the EFCC chairman said.
“Another lesson is that investors hardly send suspicious transaction reports to the EFCC until they are defrauded.”
Olukoyede urged Nigerians to learn more about digital assets, saying that public awareness and careful checking are essential to prevent fraud.
