The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Wednesday raised the alarm that some organised foreign fraud syndicates have started establishing cells in major cities across Nigeria.

It specifically said they were recruiting young Nigerians in droves into what it described as organised cybercrimes, including cryptocurrency fraud, adding that the commission had declared war on them.

Chairman of the EFCC, Ola Oluyede, revealed this at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja when he received participants of the Executive Intelligence Management Course (EIMC 18) of the National Institute for Security Studies.

Olukoyede wondered why bandits and insurgents have been able to sustain their activities over the years, adding that the fraudulent foreigners were suspected to be aiding their nefarious activities in the country.

He also stressed that the flow of small arms and light weapons across borders and the involvement of non-state actors in the illegal exploitation of minerals in parts of the country all compound the threats in the security landscape.

“Another dimension that is not given attention is the discovery, recently, that organized foreign fraud syndicates are establishing cells in Nigerian cities and recruiting young Nigerians into serious organized cybercrimes, including cryptocurrency fraud.

“By the virtue of EFCC’s recent discovery, we are beginning to see the likelihood, the propensity that a lot of these people are into illegal importation of arms into the country using cryptocurrency as means of payment. And this is an area that must interest all of us.

“In the special operations we carried out in Lagos recently, we arrested 194 foreigners in the heart of Victoria Island. One hundred and ninety-four of them, Chinese, Filipinos, Eastern Europeans, Tunisians and the like in one building at a time.

“You can imagine what these guys are doing, 194 of them. Some of them don’t even have valid visas and most of the financial activities they carried out they did through cryptocurrency.

“Another thing that we discovered is that some of the foreigners we arrested were already ex-convicts in their countries. Some of them have been convicted and escaped from their countries and found safe haven in Africa, not only Nigeria.

“We discovered that they are also developing cells in some other African countries by virtue of the investigation we are carrying out,” the anti-graft agency boss said.

The EFCC boss called for concerted efforts at both national and continental levels to combat the menace of internet fraudsters, stressing that the money laundering and national security dimension of the presence of foreign organized crime groups demand close scrutiny.

“All security, intelligence and law enforcement organisations in Nigeria and indeed Africa, must close ranks in dealing with this challenge,” he added.