An online fraudulent investment scheme has reportedly defrauded three victims of a total of N5.4m.
Recounting their ordeals, the victims said the site crashed when they were due to withdraw their money.
According to one of the victims, Abdulfatai Oluwashina, who is based in Kwara State, his friend, Bilikisu Dada, introduced him to the cryptocurrency mining platform, which he lost N1.8m to, while his wife lost N550,000.
He said he started the scheme on February 7, 2023, till May 20.
His words, “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.”
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According to the investor, the online platform had gone blank with ‘Bank service upgrading’ written on the site since May 20.
Also speaking, Bilikisu, who introduced Oluwashina lamented that she is also a victim of the fraud.
Borno based Bilikisu 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.”
The anchors were said to have 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.