The collapse of CBEX, a suspected Ponzi scheme that has reportedly wiped out over N1.3 trillion in investors’ funds, raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of regulatory and enforcement institutions like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Development Diaries reports that the crash of the platform has left investors, many of them young people, with empty accounts and shattered hopes.
While the SEC says it warned about CBEX’s lack of registration, these reactive notices do not seem to be enough in a digital trading world that is growing.
A victim, identified as Bola, was heard saying, ‘Me 200 dollars, but I collected all my friends money, all the money, 1,000 dollars’, she lamented, revealing that the funds were all she had managed to save after years of working in Libya.
With thousands of young Nigerians falling victim to such platforms, the question must be asked: what proactive steps are agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) taking to monitor and clamp down on illegal financial operations before they spiral into national crises?
Despite repeated cases of Ponzi schemes ravaging citizens’ finances, there remains a disturbing pattern of delayed action and poor deterrence.
In the case of CBEX, the EFCC appears to have been completely absent until the damage was already done, even though the platform had been flagged by the SEC.
This raises questions about the EFCC’s intelligence-gathering capacity and its ability to detect and investigate illicit financial operations in real time.
It is troubling that CBEX was able to operate so openly and for so long despite not being licensed by the SEC. This suggests a regulatory gap or enforcement lapse that fraudsters have learnt to exploit.
The EFCC is not just a prosecutorial agency, it is also mandated to prevent financial crimes. But how can this preventive role be taken seriously when a scheme as far-reaching as CBEX, allegedly involving over N1.3 trillion, was allowed to flourish unchecked?
The platform reportedly experienced consistent withdrawal issues before going dark, yet there’s no record of any public move by the EFCC to investigate or disrupt its operations during that time.
Moreover, the aftermath of CBEX’s crash has seen no immediate public response from the EFCC in terms of arrests, account freezes, or assurances of restoration.
Victims are left to mourn their losses while the alleged perpetrators may already be on the run.
The absence of visible accountability only deepens public distrust about the commission’s commitment to justice, especially when the victims are ordinary Nigerians.
The commission must adopt more aggressive surveillance, rapid-response mechanisms, and digital tools to track suspicious platforms before they do damage.
Development Diaries calls on the EFCC, which is tasked with investigating and prosecuting financial crimes, to ensure that the masterminds behind CBEX do not vanish into thin air.
We also call on the SEC to urgently commission an independent forensic audit into the operations of CBEX, its financial disclosures, investor relations, and corporate governance practices.
The SEC should commit to full public disclosure of investigative findings, including any complicity or negligence within its regulatory framework.
The SEC should also carry out a national investor literacy drive, using digital tools, social media, and radio to help ordinary Nigerians spot investment fraud and understand SEC-approved schemes.
Photo source: Free Range
