Posted by Samuel on Fri 21st Jul, 2023 - tori.ng
Three of the victims, in separate interviews with PUNCH Metro, narrated how they were allegedly swindled of their money with a promise of reaping profits from the online investment.
Nigerians have fallen victim to a fraudulent investment scheme, a report by PUNCH has shown.
Some victims have recounted their ordeals after they lost a total of N5.4m to an online investment site that reportedly crashed when they were due to withdraw their money.
Three of the victims, in separate interviews with PUNCH Metro, narrated how they were allegedly swindled of their money with a promise of reaping profits from the online investment.
One of the victims, Kwara-based Abdulfatai Oluwashina, who spoke with our correspondent on Wednesday, said he was referred to the cryptocurrency mining platform by his friend, Bilikisu Dada.
He said he lost N1.8m while his wife lost N550,000 to the scheme.
Oluwashina said, “I started on February 7, 2023, till May 20. The money I lost to the scheme is about N1.8m.
“On May 20 when the site crashed, I unknowingly put an additional N250,000. The profit is meant to be reaped gradually. If you put money now, you would start reaping the following day. But the way they structured it, if you put in N300,000, you cannot reap up to N80,000 till the time they introduce another investment.
“They know Nigerians are gullible. Most of us are gullible. If you put in N300,000 now, when you reap up to N100,000, they will introduce another machine such that you would not withdraw that money. You would buy another machine or even add more money. We were trapped in that something.
“My total investment was about N3m but I was able to withdraw some, I have about N1.8m with them now. I referred my wife who also lost N550,000.”
She lamented that since May 20, the online platform had gone blank with ‘Bank service upgrading’ written on the site.
“The system is now crashed and it is no longer opening,” he lamented.
Bilikisu, based in Maiduguri, Borno State, who introduced Abdulfatai said, “I was a victim too. Our money went like that. I invested about N1.3m. They started in November 2022 to April 2023. I don’t know anywhere to report to. They are into mining cryptocurrency. The people who fell victim that I know are more than 20. I got to know about the platform online.”
Another victim, Ojo Oluwaseun, who is also based in Maiduguri, said, “We were thinking it was a legitimate investment. They told us they had some machine that is like Bitcoin. We downloaded their application from PlayStore. I invested up to N1.5m. A lot of my friends invested more than that. I referred many people. I started with them in March. I was able to withdraw N60,000 and N180,000 the first and second time respectively.”
PUNCH Metro gathered that the anchors removed themselves from the group after the development and their numbers stopped going through.
Calls put across to two of the anchors identified simply as Mark and Amanda by our correspondent did not connect.
A link to the site shared with our correspondent did not load as well.