RECENT news making the rounds that some people have lost large sums to a digital trading platform, CBEX, has now raised questions about the awareness of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) companies verification portal.

A check by The ICIR shows that the apex regulator, SEC, has a portal for verifying legit investment companies; however, whether most Nigerians are aware of the platform remains a subject of debate.

Nigerians became wary on Monday, April 14, when it dawned on most people who invested their fortunes in the CBEX platform that they might have lost their investment.

This is the latest scam some Nigerians have fallen victim to in the last 10 years.

The ICIR can recall that Nigerians have fallen victim to MMM Nigeria, Get Help Worldwide, Crowd Rising, Donation Hub, Lion’s Share, 6Dollars Investment, and now CBEX investments.

Amid the frequency of Ponzi schemes, the SEC’s responsibilities in enlightening and sensitising the general public on the operations of the market against unlicensed operators should be of concern.

An enquiry to its head of corporate communications, Efe Ebelo, on what measures the commission has adopted to educate unsuspecting Nigerians who may be ignorant of Ponzi schemes has yet to be responded to at the time of filing this report.

However, experts in the sector believe that the SEC needed to make the necessary campaigns to enlighten and enforce regulations against Ponzi scheme operators.

The recently signed Investment and Securities Act 2025 has given more power to the SEC to regulate all virtual and digital assets.

“Hence, the SEC should not fold its hands and allow this massive fraud and loss of investment by Nigeria to go unchallenged,” said the national president of New Dimension Shareholders, Patrick Ajudua.

On Monday, thousands of Nigerians were thrown into tears after they realised that their funds had been wiped out from the platform.

The digital trading platform is said to have operated by giving investors a 100 per cent Return On Investment in 30 days.

CBEX crash came a few weeks after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the newly enacted Investments and Securities Act 2025 (ISA 2025) into law.

The ISA 2025 empowers the SEC to register and regulate securities exchanges, commodity exchanges, virtual and digital asset exchanges, and other market venues.

The law makes it illegal to operate digital asset exchanges or online foreign exchange trading platforms without formal registration with the Commission.

The ICIR earlier reported that the commission had said promoters and operators of Ponzi schemes, under the new law, would face a jail term of 10 years and a minimum fine of N20 million.

“N20 million is not the entire penalty or the entire money that will be charged or sanctioned to any suspect or any accused capital market or non-capital market operator. It is just part of the penalties that will be meted out against such persons,” Director General of the SEC,  Emomotimi Agama, had explained.

But market watchers also believe that the CBEX incident shows there is still a lot to do, especially on financial education on the part of the SEC.

Some asserted that in a period of economic downturn, when there are low returns on the financial market, there is the temptation for vulnerable Nigerians to be lured into various illegal schemes.