The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has declared two more individuals wanted in connection with the alleged N1.3 trillion Crypto Bridge Exchange (CBEX) scam, bringing the total number of suspects to eight.
In a public notice released via its official X (formerly Twitter) account on Wednesday, June 4, the commission accused the duo of orchestrating elaborate fraudulent schemes that led to financial losses for unsuspecting investors using the CBEX platform.
The EFCC urged members of the public with credible information on the whereabouts of the suspects to come forward, assuring that all tips will be treated with the utmost confidentiality.
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In May, the anti-graft agency announced the recovery of some money from the digital investment platform CBEX.
This was announced by its chairman, Mr Ola Olukoyede, in an interview with TVC.
The EFCC Chairman added that the agency’s operatives had also arrested some suspects in connection with the fraud.
“We have gone far with CBEX. We have been able to recover a reasonable amount of money,” he said.
He explained further that stolen money was in cryptocurrency and the EFCC had been able to trace and recover part of it.
He also acknowledged that the agency experienced difficulties while converting the funds back to dollars in cash.
He added: “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.”
The EFCC boss added that some suspects had already been arrested, noting that the agency was still pursuing others who are on the run.
“We have gone far. We have made a reasonable arrest.
“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 stated that the investigation had been challenging because the fraudsters utilised “non-custodial wallets,” meaning there was no identity linked to the accounts, making it more difficult 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.
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“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.