EFCC arraigns two over alleged CBEX investment fraud
The Economic and Monetary Crimes Price (EFCC) on Monday, July 7, 2025, arraigned Awerusuo Otorudo and Chukwuebuka Ehirim sooner than Justice Muhammed Umar of the Federal High Court docket in Abuja on charges associated to an alleged flawed investment plan operated below the name Crypto Bridge Alternate (CBEX).
The defendants had been arraigned on a three-depend amended ticket bordering on acquiring money below false pretences, inducement, and deceptive the public with promises of high returns through an unlicensed investment platform.
One in every of the costs learn: “That you, Awerusuo Otorudo and Chukwuebuka Ehirim, typically between January 2024 and Can also honest 2025, for the period of the jurisdiction of this honourable court, did invite the public to deposit money for a fixed period or payable on call with Crypto Bridge Alternate (CBEX) with a promise of as a lot as 88% return on investment with out acquiring the written consent of the Securities and Alternate Price, and thereby committed an offence opposite to Fragment 96(1) of the Investment and Securities Act, 2025, and punishable below Fragment 96(5) of the identical Act.”
One other depend alleges that the defendants, whereas now no longer being licensed as a bank or monetary institution, invited people of the public to deposit funds with CBEX between January 2024 and Can also honest 2025. The EFCC maintains that this act violates Fragment 44(1) of the Banks and Other Monetary Institutions Act, 2020, and is punishable below Fragment 44(2) of the identical Act.
Both defendants pleaded now no longer guilty to the costs.
Following the arraignment, prosecution counsel Fadila Yusuf requested that the court remand the defendants in a correctional facility pending trial. She objected to their release on bail and spoke back to earlier complaints about detention stipulations, declaring: “The discovered counsel is very account for sooner than this honourable court, he had complained of the EFCC holding them in our facility and we are asserting if they're now no longer overjoyed with us, they're sooner than the court now, my Lord can pass them to extra overjoyed lodging.”
Defence counsel J.A. Otorudo educated the court of a pending bail application.
Justice Umar adjourned the case to July 18, 2025, for ruling on the bail application and ordered that the defendants be remanded at Kuje Correctional Centre.
