Estonian Stock Exchange Paxful Inc. accused of fraud by thousands of Nigerian investors. The fraud occurred allegedly by arbitrarily closing the account.
According to the report, on April 2, Nigerian non-profit organization United Global Resolve for Peace (UGRP) filed a petition with the financial inspectorate of the country, the Commission on Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC), which refers to Paxful's Inc.’s alleged malicious acts. practices and their impact on their Nigerian client base.
Signed by UGRP Executive Director Shalom Olaseni, the petition states that:
“The paxful trading and exchange cryptocurrency platform deprives them of investments in cryptocurrency, suspending their accounts, deactivating their wallets and refusing to return them values in their accounts even after investigating and discovering that they were not involved in any fraudulent activities ".
The petition accuses the company of “deliberately ignoring the contract and rules of a commercial transaction” of not being able to resume access to the user's money, even after the alleged investigations were unfounded.
The petition also alleges that Paxful made a profit of $ 20 million. The United States through the exchange in 2018, and Nigerian customers allegedly provided 40% of the proceeds from transactions with Bitcoins (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and other cryptocurrencies.
One alleged victim, Samuel Olanrevadzhu, told Punch news that since November 2018 he had lost access to three BTC accounts (worth ~ $ 15,750 at print time), stating that the company had falsely accused him of creating a fake user profile, and refused respond to his requests. thereafter.
Paxful stated in a punch email that “all closed accounts have a reason for this. We will not close any accounts if they do not violate our Terms of Use. ”
EFCC acting spokesman Tony Oriadede confirmed in a news feed that he had received a petition and would investigate the charges.
Last March, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) warned Nigerian citizens against the use of cryptocurrencies, noting that they are not authorized by the central bank of Nigeria and, therefore, are not insured by the NDIC.
