A federal court in Lagos, Nigeria, convicted two Chinese citizens on Wednesday on charges of “cyber-terrorism,” accused and pleading guilty of participating in a massive “cryptocurrency, investment and romance” fraud scheme.
The case is the latest of Chinese nationals engaging in illicit business practices in Africa, empowered by the growing presence of the Chinese Communist Party on the continent. Like many of its peer nations, Nigeria is an active participant in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a Chinese government scam in which Beijing offers predatory loans to participating countries meant to be used on infrastructure projects built by Chinese companies. When the countries cannot pay back the loans, the Chinese state compromises the sovereignty of participating countries by seizing assets related to BRI projects. While Nigeria has yet to experience any major asset forfeitures, the growing presence of Chinese regime-linked companies in the country has repeatedly raised concerns for locals since it joined the BRI.
The two men processed this week, Huang Haoyu and An Hongxu, were sentenced to serve 46 years in prison each and are mandated to serve three days of community service following the prison sentence before being deported. Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission also stated that the men face an option of fine of 56 million naira, or about $41,000.
The Commission described the two men as being linked to a company called Genting International Co. Ltd., which it claimed officials believed was established by an associated Nigerian citizen with the purpose of defrauding Nigerians.
“The defendants were found to have procured and employed Nigerian youths to falsely represent themselves as foreign nationals for the purpose of defrauding unsuspecting victims through online platforms,” the Commission explained. The fraud executed through this scheme, according to the Nigerian government, involved over 3 billion naira ($2.5 million) procured through scams around the world.
The “terrorism” aspect of the conviction was reportedly linked to Huang and An allegedly conspiring to “willfully cause to be accessed, computer systems organised to seriously destabilise the economic and social structure of Nigeria.” The Financial Crimes Commission did not specify exactly what authorities believe the two Chinese nationals were hoping to accomplish by accessing the computer systems in question in its public message on the conviction.
The two Chinese nationals were part of a scheme prosecuted alongside a Nigerian defendant, Friday Audu, who is pleading not guilty and thus is engaging in ongoing legal processes. Huang and An reportedly changed their plea to “guilty” this week, which resulted in the faster sentencing. Prosecutors had reportedly asked to imprison both of them for life prior to the sentencing.
The three individuals were arrested in December 2024 as part of one of the largest police operations in recent Nigerian history, targeting global online financial scam operations. The operation in 2024, titled “Eagle Flush Operation,” resulted in the arrests of 792 individuals accused of fraud, dozens of them identified as Chinese citizens. As of August, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission updated that it had deported 102 of the nearly 800 people arrested. The Commission identified 50 of these deportees as Chinese citizens; about 148 of those arrested were identified as Chinese. The arrests occurred at a suspected fraud complex in Lagos, southern Nigeria.
Following the raid, the Commission noted that identifying foreign scammers in Nigeria was a point of national pride of the country, which has developed a global reputation as a hub for scams.
“This current operation for us is an eye opener because of the large number of foreigners involved which is an indication that the perception of Nigerians as fraudulent people may not be true,” Commission spokesman Wilson Uwujaren told reporters. “We have a number of foreigners now coming to Nigeria to perpetrate frauds that are ascribed to Nigerians.”
The presence of Chinese nationals causing legal problems in Nigeria is not a new development, though the more illicit channels of making money identified in the “Eagle Flush Operation” are less common than direct struggles with Chinese corporations. One notable example is the conflict between the Nigerian state and the Chinese company Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co., hired as part of the BRI scene to build a commercial development known as the “Ogun Free Trade Zone” in that eponymous state. The agreement, signed in 2010, resulted in no meaningful development by the company and the Nigerian government ultimately canceled the project in 2015. Following the cancelation, Zhongshan, backed by the Chinese government, sought international arbitration that resulted in a ruling demanding the Nigerian government hand over $70 million in damages plus interest and government-owned aircraft.
“The case in which Zhongshan is trying to use every unorthodox means to strip our offshore assets is between the company and the Ogun state government,” Nigerian presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga lamented in 2024. “This arm-twisting tactic by the Chinese company is the latest in a long list of failed moves to attach Nigerian government-owned assets in foreign jurisdictions.”
Onanuga complained that China was sending “unscrupulous and questionable individuals … with the sole objective of undercutting and scamming governments in Africa” to the continent.