How Boko Haram is Financed

              


When Washington imposed sanctions in June 2012 on Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, he dismissed it as an empty gesture.

Two years later, Shekau’s skepticism appears well founded: his Islamic militant group is now the biggest security threat to Africa's top oil producer, is richer than ever, more violent and its abductions of women and children continue with impunity.

As the United States, Nigeria and others struggle to track and choke off its funding, Reuters interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. officials who closely follow Boko Haram provide the most complete picture to date of how the group finances its activities.

                 


Ransoms appear to be the main source of funding for Boko Haram's five-year-old Islamist insurgency in Nigeria, whose 170 million people are split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims, said the U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In February last year, armed men on motorcycles snatched Frenchman Tanguy Moulin-Fournier, his wife and four children, and his brother while they were on holiday near the Waza national park in Cameroon, close to the Nigerian border.

Boko Haram was paid an equivalent of about $3.15 million by French and Cameroonian negotiators before the hostages were released, according to a confidential Nigerian government report later obtained by Reuters.

               

Figures vary on how much Boko Haram earns from kidnappings. Some U.S. officials estimate the group is paid as much as $1 million for the release of each abducted wealthy Nigerian.

It is widely assumed in Nigeria that Boko Haram receives support from religious sympathizers inside the country, including some wealthy professionals and northern Nigerians who dislike the government, although little evidence has been made public to support that assertion.

Current and former U.S. and Nigerian officials say Boko Haram's operations do not require significant amounts of money, which means even successful operations tracking and intercepting their funds are unlikely to disrupt their campaign.

Boko Haram had developed "a very diversified and resilient model of supporting itself," said Peter Pham, a Nigeria scholar at the Atlantic Council think-tank in Washington.

"It can essentially 'live off the land' with very modest additional resources required," he said.