The CBEX Swindle

By Tunji Adegboyega

Perhaps the scam would have been averted if the govt had arrested the promoters

Swindling, like most other good or bad things, has been with us for some time. Indeed, Nigeria has had several examples in the past without many Nigerians learning any serious lessons. The one trending in the country now is (Crypto Bridge Exchange (CBEX), which also operates under the corporate identity of ST Technologies International Ltd, Smart Treasure/Super Technology.

People have lost various sums deposited with CBEX, some as little as N50,000 and others, millions. A particular person reportedly deposited $10,000. Sometimes I wonder what such people want; you have that much money and you cannot think of a worthwhile business to do with it but to risk putting it in a place where it could be eaten up by ants and caterpillars.

As at the time the company collapsed early this month, the owners had raked in over N1.3 trillion. They then reportedly vanished into thin air!

I hardly have any feelings for people who hanker after easy money. Yoruba people say “eni nwa’fa, nw’ofo” (whoever is looking for freeby is looking for loss). I hope that translation aptly captures it.

I have read the accounts of some of the victims of the CBEX swindle. Usually, most of them were introduced to it by friends, relatives, colleagues in the office, co-traders, fellow students, mosque or church members, neighbours, and what have you.

Inasmuch as there is a long list of CBEX victims to choose from, that of an Ibadan-based ‘kuli-kuli’ (a local snack made from groundnuts) seller in Ibadan interests me most.

She said in a video that was shared by ‘Punch’, that she “took a loan of one million naira to invest in CBEX,” adding that “they vanished with my money the second week I joined.” In pains, she said “They have ruined our lives in Soka; husbands and wives don’t agree anymore in the home. Please help me, I’m raising stranger’s children.”

Today’s swindle business seems to me a modern version of the crude one that used to take place in Lagos when I was a child. One day, I was returning on holiday from Ijebu-Ode Grammar School, Ijebu-Ode, where I started my secondary education sometime in the ’70s when I saw this crowd, I think around Onipanu, Lagos. Curious about what could be going on, I put my trunk box down from my head and joined the crowd. I think they were doing both magic and money doubling. Not that I was interested in either, really, because my parents, like many parents of that golden era had warned me that the only wealth that pays is the one that one worked for.

But I joined the crowd all the same due to the typical juvenile curiosity. Unknown to me and some other victims of the incident, the organisers had planted pickpockets among the crowd. They were all adept at their duty. They made sure we the onlookers were carried away by what they were doing. Then, as we pushed and shoved ourselves trying to get candid views of what was happening, some of us stretching our necks almost to breaking point in the process, the pickpockets that had been strategically-positioned in the crowd swung into action. I only got to know what had happened when I decided to leave for home. My transport fare had disappeared!

I began the long trek from that spot to Post Office Bus Stop near Oyingbo where I lived with my paternal grandmother of blessed memory, a distance of about 6.9 km. Even as a little boy then, it didn’t occur to me to beg for transport fare home because that was alien to us here in the southwest. There was no mobile phone then; even the table phones of old were then not for every Tom, Dick and Harry. So, there was no way I could have got across to my grandmother about where I was or what was happening.

I eventually met her outside the house and when she finally saw me that night, she was extremely happy. She knelt down to pray, fervently thanking God after hearing the big lie I told as excuse for getting home so late. Of course if I had told her the truth, she wouldn’t have flogged me (many grandparents of old always pampered their grandchildren) but my father must never hear that kind of story.

But that was swindling as we used to know it then. Today, swindling is now big business. It has transformed along with the tide, these days leveraging on technology. Anyone who tries the crude method of the 1970s and ’80s to defraud today would not only reap little, his or her chances of being caught like a chicken are very high.

But, much as those involved in scamming have kept on upgrading themselves, travelling on the super highway that internet offers, their victims have refused to upgrade. They are still on the analogue lane that leads to regret and gnashing of teeth.

Greed may be the dominant reason why so many people continue to fall victims of CBEX and other scams; ignorance is another.

Imagine the ‘kuli-kuli’ seller who said she took one million naira loan to invest in CBEX. Is it not better for her to borrow half of that amount to improve and expand her ‘kuli-kuli’ business? You can imagine the kind of transformation that would happen to the business with such an amount. Five hundred thousand naira may not make a dent on many businesses in view of today’s low value of the naira. But it would have salutary effect on ‘kuli-kuli’ business. Let’s even concede that N500,000 would not be enough, why couldn’t she borrow the one million naira for her ‘kuli-kuli’? That business would no longer be the same again if she had enough knowledge or idea of what to do to better the lot of what she does for a living. Who told her that her business cannot be modernised and her ‘kuli-kuli’ packaged in a way to attract the patronage of people on a higher economic level?

If many of us see where they produce some of the plantain chips that we eat with relish in traffic hold-ups, we would swear never to eat it again. But all we see is the final product, well packaged and we are even ready to pay a little higher premium to get it if only for that reason. That is the wonder of packaging.

As a matter of fact, it is this kind of knowledge that many artisans and traders need to better their lot. I don’t know if governments can come in at this stage with programmes to empower people like this with the knowledge to improve their trades, or they go into cooperatives for this and other rewarding purposes. Politicians and philanthropic institutions giving these people start-up capital could also find time to train them on how to improve their businesses. Maybe, many of them who perished for lack of knowledge would have been saved through such programmes.

Another Yoruba adage says you first ensure that you dye the cloth that you want to dash a lazy fellow (ta ba ma da’so f’ole, a paa laro). It is not enough to start them up, there must also be follow-up workshops and enlightenment programmes to ensure they keep modernising their trades. Many of them who inherited trades from their parents and grandparents have continued to do the trades the same way their ancestors were doing them many decades ago. No trace or evidence of modernisation.

In the case of the ‘kuli-kuli’ seller, I want to believe that she did not tell those who gave her the loan the truth and the whole truth about what she wanted to use it for. She must have lied to them because it is unlikely those ones would have given her the loan if she said she wanted to invest it in CBEX. In fact, they would have advised her not only to run but flee from it if she had disclosed such a thing to them! Yes, they are eager to give loans and get interest from it; but they are also concerned about the risk element on the loan.

Now, the ‘kuli-kuli’ seller and the many others who have fallen victims of CBEX are gnashing their teeth and biting their lips in regret. A dry morsel eaten in peace is better than fat meat in a terrible situation (okele gbigbe pelu itelorun san ju ora agbo ninu hila, hilo).

Many of the victims said they were told that government approved the business.

Some said they joined because there are no jobs. None of the excuses is good enough.

But all of them have one prayer in common: they want the government to help them by probing those involved in the scam and punishing them. They want government to help them retrieve their deposits. Those are the kinds of things that happen when businesses go awry. Those ‘investors’ who participated in the CBEX deposits early enough have since smiled to the banks. I am not sure they paid tax, not to talk of government being aware that they made such profit for doing nothing.

But such is life. A dog knows the way back to its owner’s house after using its head to pack faeces.

As I said earlier, I have no sympathy for people who fall victims of a thing like this. Even then, I think the Federal Government ought to have done better by stopping the scam before many Nigerians became victims. It is true an institution like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) warned against patronising CBEX. It is possible the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) also did. But, was that enough?

Could the operators not have been rounded up the moment the government saw they were operating without approval?

I am a novice here. I only want to be educated. Is ‘siddon’ look as we did with CBEX the global best practice in the circumstance?

Even if that is, methinks the government still ought to have done a little more to prevent this ugly situation. If government can take it upon itself to prosecute people who attempted suicide, nothing stops it from helping to stop a business like CBEX before it became a messy affair. Some of its victims may contemplate suicide. Without necessarily saying the ‘kuli-kuli’ seller is likely to consider that option, how many ‘kuli-kuli’ would she sell to get one million naira? Seen why the government ought to have done better than the warnings that its agencies gave on this matter?

Culled from The Nation