It was sorrow, tears and shock for many Nigerians that invested in a Ponzi scheme named CBEX after it crashed this week.
Before the recorded loss, many people invested in the scheme which was advertised on social media with screenshots of account balances from $1,000, $10,000, and $85,000.
On Tuesday morning, investors woke up to the reality that their accounts have been blanked, with no access to funds.
In fact, there was an instruction that, except they comply with a new directive to deposit more funds to withdraw from their accounts.
While many cried and lamented their losses on social media, others stormed one of the offices of CBEX in the Oke-Ado area of Ibadan, Oyo State, where angry mob carted away some of the office equipment and furniture they could lay their hands on.
The trending video showed people carting away furniture and other items from the office.
Recently, Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) warned Nigerians against depositing funds with fraudulent and unauthorized digital platforms for unrealistic returns.
Director General of SEC, Dr Emomotimi Agama, said the warning was to protect Nigerians from falling prey to fraudulent schemes.
Another video on CBEX community surfaced after the loss of investment which explained the procedure to recover their money in Pidgin English.
“If you have below $8,000 in your CBEX account, you have to pay $100 to withdraw your money. If you have above $8,000, then you will have to pay $200 to withdraw it,” a male voice said in the video.
However, members of the community warned that the procedure was a new twist in the scam.
They wondered why the administrators would require new deposits of at least $100 to withdraw from the initial balance. Rather, they advised people to accept their loss and move on, rather than becoming a victim again.
