Nigeria has emerged as a major node in an international ISIS financing network now under US sanctions, with three of the six companies designated by Washington operating out of Lagos and Kano.
The US State Department announced the sanctions on Monday, targeting a network that moved ISIS funds through France, Syria, Türkiye, and Nigeria. Spokesperson Tommy Pigott named three individuals at the centre of the operation: a France-based facilitator who allegedly passed explosives information to ISIS supporters, a Syria-based operator who used cryptocurrency to wire funds to ISIS associates in multiple countries including the US, and a Nigerian who ran the currency exchange end of the operation.
That Nigerian, identified as Mukhtar Adamu Muhammad, also listed under the aliases Adamu Mukhtar and Muhammad Mukhtar, is based on Abimbola Street off Capital Road in Lagos’s Agege area. He was born in early August 1990 and travels on two separate Nigerian passports. The US Treasury linked him directly to ISIS-West Africa.
Three bureau de change firms tied to Muhammad now sit on the Specially Designated Nationals list: Generation Currency Bureau De Change Limited and Nine to Nine Exchange Bureau De Change Limited, both in Lagos State, and Manhattan Bureau De Change Limited, based on Murtala Mohammed Way in Kano. The sanctions freeze any US-linked assets the firms hold and bar American persons or institutions from dealing with them.
The two other men sanctioned alongside Muhammad were named as Boukich Abdelhakim, a Dutch national operating in Syria under the aliases Abu Sulayman Alholandi and Muhammad Babili, and Miloud Abderrahmane, a French national also known as Ibrahim Ghazi.
Pigott said the action was part of Washington’s ongoing campaign to choke off ISIS’s finances using diplomatic and legal tools wherever the group’s support networks surface, including in West Africa.
Seunmanuel Faleye is a brand and communications strategist. He is a covert writer and an overt creative head. He publishes Apple’s Bite International Magazine.
