The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has announced the recovery of some funds from the collapsed digital investment platform, CryptoBank Exchange (CBEX), which allegedly defrauded thousands of Nigerians.
According to a statement by the anti-graft agency, the recovery is part of ongoing efforts to trace and return stolen funds after CBEX crashed, leaving investors in disarray.
Earlier reports revealed that investors lost an estimated ₦1.3 trillion after their digital wallets were emptied, despite CBEX’s bold promise of 100% Return on Investment (ROI) in just 30 days.
Speaking on TVC, Chairman of EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, also disclosed that the EFCC has made arrests in connection with the CBEX fraud, noting that the agency is still pursuing others who are on the run.
He added that the EFCC had made significant progress in its investigation into the crypto scheme.
“We have gone far. We have made a reasonable arrest. We have also been able to recover a reasonable amount of money. We are not going to give out much because we don’t want the process to be disrupted. We are still after quite a number of people we have declared wanted,” he said.
He, however, said the investigation had been challenging because the fraudsters used “non-custodial wallets,” which means there was no identity attached to the accounts, making it harder to trace the criminals.
“We are still investigating a lot of wallets and the wallets they created are called noncustodian wallets; in other words, no KYC. So, you can’t trace it to anybody. So, from the noncustodial wallet, they moved it to some wallets in Europe, Eastern Europe, particularly Cambodia and from there, they dispersed the money. We have been able to block some of these wallets where money has not been dispersed.
“That is to the extent that we have gone. I even learnt that there are still some of these perpetrators and Nigerians are still falling victim. I believe people should learn from this,” he said.
Olukoyede explained further that although the stolen money was in cryptocurrency, the EFCC has managed to trace and recover part of it.
“Even though in the crypto wallet, the same way the money was taken from them. There is no way you will get them in dollars. There is no way you get the dollars in cash without necessarily going through the same process,” he stated.
