KEY POINTS

• A court granted EFCC permission to conduct an arrest and detention of the six CBEX promoters.
• The criminal activities led victims to lose more than $1 billion through the crypto-based scam.
• The EFCC declares ST Technologies has no legal rights to operate as an investment service provider.

A Federal High Court in Abuja allowed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to arrest and hold six persons who conducted a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment fraud at Crypto Bridge Exchange (CBEX) resulting in victim losses exceeding $1 billion.

The ex parte motion by Fadila Yusuf convinced Justice Emeka Nwite during his Thursday decision. The EFCC received judicial blessing to arrest and detain individuals the agency suspects of criminal involvement following their cryptocurrency scheme investigations.

The court application meets all requirements therefore I side with it. According to the judge the court approved the application precisely as it was presented.

All six suspects whose names appeared in the application are Adefowora Abiodun Olanipekun, Adefowora Oluwanisola, Emmanuel Uko, Seyi Oloyede, Avwerosuo Otorudo and Chukwuebuka Ehirim.

Investors fell victim to deceitful to CBEX fraud

The EFCC revealed that ST Technologies International Limited served as the platform to market CBEX. CBEX operated an online platform that promised Nigerians substantial rate-of-return (100 percent) on their digital asset investment although they were deceiving victims to exchange their digital money for USDT before placing it in CBEX wallets, which in turn resulted in CBEX fraud.

The first step of monitoring investments through the platform became possible for victims before the platform shut down unexpectedly resulting in suspicions about fraudulent activities.

The EFCC discovered ST Technologies exists on the Corporate Affairs Commission registry yet it does not have Securities and Exchange Commission permission to operate investment services. The commission stated its difficulty in arresting suspects because they left their original residence addresses behind in both Lagos and Ogun states.

EFCC pushes for justice as red alert issued

According to the EFCC the arrests serve to both prosecute the suspects while preventing any new acts of damage.

The defendants operate beyond authorities’ reach so their arrest needs a warrant for essential investigation leading to prosecution of this case according to Yusuf. The agency will add these suspects to the red watch list in order to make their capture possible.

The EFCC submitted its findings indicating enough evidence to support that the investments constitute a probable fraudulent scheme thus it backed the requests for arrests and detention orders.