Shola Akinyele
In what is quickly becoming one of the most devastating digital heists in Nigerian financial history, CBEX, the so-called “AI trading platform,” has officially crashed, leaving thousands of investors devastated and empty-handed.
On what can only be described as a dark day for online investors, over $822 million USD (₦1.3 trillion) was moved into a private Ethereum wallet, while users watched their account balances magically drop to ₦0.00 — with no prior warning.
The catch? The money didn’t disappear today. According to analysts, funds were siphoned off immediately after deposits. The illusion of daily profits, AI trades, and impressive dashboards were nothing more than clever code masking an orchestrated fraud. Behind the scenes, investor funds were converted from TRX to USDT and then to ETH — quietly piling into a single Ethereum wallet.
To make matters worse, the CBEX team has now locked their Telegram channels and halted all withdrawals, claiming a “security breach.” In a shocking twist, they’re demanding “verification fees” — $100 for accounts below $1,000 and $200 for accounts above $1,000 — as a condition to access funds. Critics call it the final cash grab.
“This was a textbook Ponzi scheme,” said cybersecurity analyst Taiwo Owolabi, who traced the movement of funds. “There was never any real trading. What users saw were fake numbers. The ‘AI’ was just smoke and mirrors. Withdrawals were made possible by recycling other people’s money.”
CBEX lured thousands with promises of 100% ROI in just 30 days, flaunting a polished but fragile website eerily similar to trusted platforms like ByBit. But behind the facade was an unlicensed, unregulated operation built to funnel cash as fast as possible.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has now weighed in, warning that CBEX is not a registered digital asset trading platform in Nigeria, and therefore, operating illegally.
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