The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has named four Kenyan nationals as main suspects in a large online scam linked to the now-closed Crypto Bridge Exchange (CBEX).
According to a statement released by the EFCC, the suspects involved in the scheme are three Kenyan men and one woman.
The suspects are believed to be foreign accomplices in the fraudulent scheme that has seen investors across Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt lose more than $840 million (about Ksh108 billion at the current exchange rates).
“The public is hereby notified that the persons whose photographs appear below are suspected foreign accomplices wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for fraud allegedly perpetrated on an online trading platform called Crypto Bridge Exchange (CBEX),” the notice stated.
The platform, which claimed to be a crypto investment site, was exposed as a ponzi scheme that tricked investors.
A ponzi scheme is a type of fraud where money from new investors is used to pay earlier investors, instead of being invested to make real profits.
These schemes, in most cases, collapse when there is not enough new money coming in to be used to pay everyone.
The EFCC is still investigating and is asking anyone who knows where the suspects are to share the information with the authorities.
In recent months, Kenyan police and international authorities have arrested several people involved in the online scam.
On November 27, 24 Kenyans were arrested by the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) for stealing money through fake online credit card deals.
The suspects took over Ksh1.1 billion ($8.6 million) and sent it via SWIFT to people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Nigeria and China.
"In Kenya, officers cracked a case of online credit card fraud linked to losses of $8.6 million. The funds, stolen through fraudulent scripts run after altering the banking system’s security protocol, were promptly redistributed by the group via SWIFT to companies in the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria and China and subsequently to digital asset institutions offering trading and financial services regulated in multiple jurisdictions. Nearly two dozen arrests have been made so far,” the Interpol statement stated.
