The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ordered all Capital Market Regulated Entities (CMREs) to immediately identify and freeze funds, assets and other economic resources linked to a Nigerian individual and three companies recently sanctioned by the United States over alleged financial ties to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and ISIS-West Africa.
The directive is contained in a circular titled “Notice of Sanction” published on the SEC’s website.
The individual named is Mukhtar Adamu Muhammad, also known as Mukhtar Adamu and Muhammad Mukhtar. The three companies are Generation Currency Bureau De Change Limited, Manhattan Bureau De Change Limited and Nine to Nine Exchange Bureau De Change Limited.
Regulated entities must freeze the affected assets without prior notice and report their actions to the Secretariat of the Nigeria Sanctions Committee. They are also required to submit reports detailing assets frozen, compliance steps taken and any attempted transactions involving the sanctioned individual or entities.
The SEC further directed operators to file suspicious transaction reports with the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) for further examination of financial activities tied to the sanctioned parties, and to report any name-matching cases identified in transactions, whether they occurred before or after the sanctions list was received.
CMREs have also been ordered to stop all dealings with the sanctioned individual and companies and to maintain ongoing monitoring of related transactions. Findings from the monitoring exercise should be reported to the Nigeria Sanctions Committee via
The SEC said the directive takes immediate effect and warned that non-compliance would violate the Investments and Securities Act, 2025, as well as its Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Rules and Regulations. Non-compliant operators risk regulatory sanctions, including fines, suspension of operations or revocation of registration.
The directive underscores growing efforts by Nigerian regulators to shield the country’s financial and capital market systems from exploitation for terrorism financing, money laundering and other illicit financial activities.
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