Terrorists Now Using Gold To Fund Operations – CDS

The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, has raised alarm over the growing use of gold as a significant source of financing for terrorist activities in Nigeria.

Naija News reports that Musa disclosed this while speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Thursday, where he explained that terror financiers exploit complex international networks, making it difficult to expose or prosecute them swiftly.

When asked about the primary source of funding for terror groups, the Defence Chief responded, “Gold. They try to circulate this money, and that is why it is important for us to be able to track these things.

“The process is on. It has to do with a lot of legal issues, and because it has to do with international connections, some of them have funds coming from outside, we cannot do anything from within.”

General Musa also revealed that terrorist groups rely on local collaborators who perform small tasks and remit funds to designated accounts daily.

“The local ones, what they do normally is that they try to employ a few individuals, provide motorcycles to them, something to do, and those are remitting funds daily into some account,” he said.

According to the CDS, the fight against terror financing is ongoing but complicated by legal hurdles and the involvement of cross-border networks.

“The process is on. It has to do with a lot of legal issues, and because it has to do with international connections, some of them have funds coming from outside, we cannot do anything from within,” Musa stressed.