Osamagbe Imadiyi
INTERPOL and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have launched an investigation into the recently defunct online digital trading platform CBEX, which allegedly embezzled N1.3 trillion from its investors.
This was revealed in a statement released on Tuesday by EFCC spokesperson Dele Oyewale. This comes as CBEX was reported to have crashed on Monday, with Nigerians taking to their social media to express pain.
When the CBEX, which was run by a group of foreigners working with their Nigerian partners and had offices in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, and other locations, failed, its investors were left stranded because they could not access their money.
Oyewale affirmed that the commission had already started looking into the plan prior to its eventual demise. He clarified that attempts were being made to apprehend the local and foreign operators responsible for the fraudulent scheme.
Oyewale also cautioned Nigerians against investing their money in any financial institution that is not properly registered with authorities. In the past 48 hours, Nigerians have responded to the CBEX crash on X.
Taiwo Owolabi, a security analyst and cryptocurrency expert, explained the CBEX crash by stating that $847 million in USDT has been stolen from investors thus far. In a recent X space he hosted, he claimed that CBEX entices its investors with a promise of a 100% return on investment in 30 days.
At least $6.1 million has been deposited into the scheme’s fictitious exchange account, according to other sources, which contended that the amount lost to CBEX was much smaller.
