₦1.0 Trillion Scam. It begins, as it often does, with a whisper. A friend of a friend has found a place where money grows faster than maize during the rainy season. You only need to drop a seed say ₦100,000 and harvest double in thirty days. No sweat. Just blessings. And so, as always, the gospel of sudden wealth spreads like fire on Harmattan grass.
Enter CBEX, a name so foreign it came with the scent of legitimacy. “China Beijing Equity Exchange,” they called it though not even a mosquito in Beijing had heard of them. But what did that matter? They had a website, a Telegram channel, and the smooth voice of a man in a tie promising “wealth without risk.”
Before long, nearly 300,000 Nigerians had lined up for their anointing. From university students to retired civil servants, the faithful marched to the temple of CBEX. Each armed with hope and some cash. The returns? 100% in 30 days. No questions asked. No sweat required. Even Heaven wasn’t offering such deals. But as the old Akan proverb goes, “When a drum sounds too sweet, check if it’s not cracked.”
On April 14, 2025, CBEX disappeared. Gone. Like vapor from hot kenkey. They left behind heartbreak, over ₦1 trillion missing, and echoes of another scandal not too long ago: Menzgold. Ah yes, our very own Menzgold. In Ghana, we too were seduced by the glitter of fake gold. Nana Appiah Mensah, aka NAM1, danced through Accra’s streets like the second coming of a financial messiah. He gave out cars, sponsored award shows, and built an empire on the back of promises too good to be true. And many of us cheered—until it all collapsed like a poorly built storey building during a rainstorm.
Now, CBEX has repeated the playbook with frightening accuracy. Same script. Different actors. Bigger budget. In both cases, regulators warned. But their warnings like the advice of a poor uncle were ignored. In Ghana, the SEC tried to distance itself. In Nigeria, the Securities and Exchange Commission had outlawed unregistered trading platforms under their 2025 Act. But try telling that to someone whose neighbour just bought a Benz from “trading crypto” on CBEX.
Even now, as investors in Ibadan flood hospitals, their blood pressure higher than the Lagos sun, we must ask: what is it about Ponzi prophets that makes us hand over our wallets with so much faith? The answer is painful. We are a people too accustomed to shortcuts. Too easily seduced by prosperity without process. We forget that real wealth is grown—not plucked like mangoes from someone else’s tree.
CBEX is not just a Nigerian tragedy. It is a West African cautionary tale. A tale that Ghana knows too well. And here lies the lesson: a society that does not value process will always fall for performance. When a man wears a suit, rents an office in a glass building, and sprinkles foreign lingo like “blockchain” and “liquidity pools,” we bow never mind that his maths makes no sense.
What next? There will be investigations. There will be silence. And soon, there will be a new platform, with a new name. Perhaps this time from Dubai. Perhaps from Malaysia. But it will come. Because, as we say in Ghana, “When the fool is silent, the fraudster will keep dancing.” To Nigeria, we offer our solidarity and a borrowed proverb: “If a snake bites your neighbor, you better check under your bed too.” And to the regulators, a humble suggestion: Maybe next time, speak louder. But most importantly, to the people: invest slowly, question everything, and remember—in finance, as in life, not all that glitters is gold. Sometimes, it’s just CBEX.
CBEX, or “China Beijing Equity Exchange,” was a fraudulent digital asset trading platform that operated in Nigeria. Despite its name, it had no affiliation with the legitimate Chinese institution. CBEX promised investors 100% returns within 30 days, attracting approximately 300,000 individuals. However, it was unregistered with Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), making its operations illegal under the Investment and Securities Act (ISA) 2025.
Disclaimer: The total amount reportedly lost in the CBEX scheme estimated at over ₦1 trillion is currently unverified. Independent blockchain analysis suggests a much lower figure. Readers are advised to interpret all financial claims with caution, as investigations are ongoing and official figures may differ from early media reports.
Source TVC News Nigeria
