SEC, CBN, EFCC partner to track, freeze illicit digital wallets

— Nigerians Lost Over N174bn to Fraudulent Schemes, Says SEC

By Obas Esiedesa, Abuja

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced a concern with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to hint and frost illicit integer wallets linked to wealth laundering, cryptocurrency scams, and different fiscal crimes.

The SEC Director-General, Dr. Emomotimi Agama, disclosed this successful Abuja during the 2025 variation of the SEC Journalists’ Academy themed “The ISA 2025 and the Future of Nigeria’s Capital Market: Innovation, Protection, and Growth.”

Agama, represented by the Head of External Relations Department, Mrs. Efe Ebelo, said the collaboration aims to heighten enforcement and capitalist extortion successful the integer plus space.

“To fortify enforcement, the SEC is moving intimately with the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to frost illicit integer wallets and retrieve transgression proceeds. Our extremity is to guarantee that innovation serves progress, not predation,” helium said.

He noted that Nigeria ranks among the world’s apical adopters of integer assets, with implicit one-third of its colonisation progressive successful crypto-related activities—driven by younker innovation, mobile connectivity, and the pursuit of fiscal inclusion.

However, helium warned that the accelerated enlargement of the integer concern abstraction has besides created country for fraudsters operating fake wallets, phishing scams, and Ponzi platforms that person defrauded thousands of Nigerians.

“Without beardown regulation, innovation tin rapidly go vulnerability,” Agama said, stressing that regularisation “is astir gathering spot and ensuring that innovation strengthens, not undermines, the economy.”

He explained that the SEC’s 2022 Rules connected Digital Assets established a broad model for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), focused connected licensing, compliance, and transparency, successful enactment with planetary anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing standards.

Agama further disclosed that the SEC is deploying blockchain analytics and artificial quality tools to hint suspicious transactions, observe fraud, and heighten cybersecurity crossed the integer concern ecosystem.

At the aforesaid event, the Head of FinTech and Innovation Department astatine the SEC, Abdulrasheed Dan-Abu, revealed that Nigerians person mislaid implicit N174 cardinal to much than 440 Ponzi schemes successful caller years.

He attributed the losses to greed and the “get-rich-quick” mindset, informing that some operators and investors successful unregistered concern schemes hazard prosecution nether the Investment and Securities Act (ISA) 2025.

Dan-Abu cited sections of the Act that criminalize offering unregistered securities oregon soliciting nationalist funds without SEC approval, with offenders facing fines of up to 50% of the worth of the amerciable securities oregon imprisonment.

Agama reiterated the Commission’s resoluteness to equilibrium innovation with capitalist protection, saying: “If regulators clamp down excessively hard, innovation migrates offshore; if they modulate excessively softly, risks multiply. Our task is to find the close balance.”

He affirmed that the SEC remains committed to gathering a transparent, ethical, and unafraid integer concern ecosystem, emphasizing that “the aboriginal of concern is integer — but its instauration indispensable stay spot and integrity.”