Not today, Satan!
There’s a new suspected scam in town, and it’s gaining ground
Good morning, Big Brains. What’s the deal with Ponzi scams and camouflaging as crypto platforms these days? Anyway, catch all the details in this edition and share it with your friends if you’re not interested in hearing stories that touch.
- Margaret
Word count: ~ 1,000
Reading time ~ 5 mins
Let’s get into today’s edition:
There’s a new suspected scam in town, and it is gaining ground
Boko Haram is back at it again
The Big Deal
There’s a new suspected scam in town, and it is gaining ground
A new bombshell is suspected to have entered the Ponzi villa, and there’s a chance that Nigerians are already falling for it.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has raised concerns over TOFRO.COM (Tofro), a cryptocurrency trading platform that, which according to the commission, isn’t just unregistered but is potentially running a full-blown Ponzi scheme under the guise of digital asset investment.
In a public notice released on Thursday, May 1, the SEC urged Nigerians to avoid the platform, explaining that it’s preying on unsuspecting investors with flashy promises and zero regulatory backing.
Tofro claims to be an “innovative digital asset trading platform” offering over 40 types of digital asset products, with its headquarters allegedly situated in the United States. SEC, is not buying it though; they believe that’s where the sweet talk ends and the red flags begin.
Investigations carried out by the commission show that Tofro isn’t registered to operate in Nigeria’s capital market and is already flashing the usual tricks from the Ponzi playbook — generous returns with minimal risk, aggressive referral-based growth, and radio silence when it’s time to withdraw funds.
Why is this a big deal?
There are 600,000 Nigerians who are recovering from the ₦1.3 trillion they lost to Crypto Bridge Exchange (CBEX), a recently exposed Ponzi scheme. For those people, this isn’t exactly just another Friday. If the SEC is right about Tofro, we might have to add more zeroes to the 600,000 people currently crying in regret.
Last week, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned Africa of a multimillion-dollar scam that’s targeting the continent. UNODC says these scams are far from regular, but are, well thought out and deceptively packaged to sound legitimate. So if it looks like we’ve been sharing more scam-related news for a minute now, that’s because scam-related news has been popping up more than usual lately.
Before you invest your money in any platform, please check the SEC’s website to confirm that the platform has been licensed in Nigeria. We know it’s not exactly been the most reliable institution, but its Director-General, Emomotimi Agama, said their website is still the best platform to spot potential Ponzi schemes.
Boko Haram is back at it again
This isn’t exactly the kind of news anyone wants to wake up to, but Boko Haram seems to have fully resumed, and in a recent attack, the terrorist group targeted Borno State, leaving 18 people dead and many others missing.
The victims were local fishermen working in Mobbar Local Government Area, a border region between Nigeria and Niger Republic. The attack happened on Sunday, April 27, around 2:30 p.m. at the Fadana-Garuwa River, located in Duji Ward.
Witnesses say dozens of Boko Haram fighters rode in on motorcycles and started an argument with some fishermen, accusing them of secretly working with their rival faction, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).
Abu Mohammed, one of the fishermen who managed to escape, said the attackers gathered their victims and slaughtered them on the spot. “They said we were giving information to ISWAP. They didn’t even give us a chance to explain,” he said during a phone call with a local reporter. “They killed our people to send a warning.”
Other reports corroborate Mohammed’s words. They say the attackers belong to a Boko Haram faction that controls parts of the riverine areas near the Niger Republic and were retaliating against the fishermen for supposedly collaborating with ISWAP. These two terrorist groups, although cut from the same cloth, usually fight each other for control of territory and influence.
The 18 victims’ bodies were recovered and buried on Tuesday, April 29, in line with Islamic customs. But the total number of people affected is still unclear.
The fishermen confirmed that they had previously been granted permission to fish in the area by ISWAP, but that access came at a price. They reportedly had to pay taxes or levies to ISWAP in exchange for protection and the right to work on the river.
Over the past few months, both ISWAP and Boko Haram have intensified their violent activities across Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states, targeting both civilians and military outposts.
Even though Nigeria is currently working with its largest defense and security budget yet, the security response to these attacks doesn’t exactly look like it. To be honest, we don’t see these attacks stopping as soon as we’d like.
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