The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has found that money from the failed CBEX crypto exchange was sent to at least four countries. The EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede, shared this news during an interview on Channels Television on Wednesday, April 30.

Olukoyede said the agency had frozen several bank accounts linked to the fraud and was making good progress in its investigation. However, he warned that it may not be possible to fully refund the victims.

“We have been able to block some accounts. We have been able to freeze some funds, which I will not be able to give you a figure, but some reasonable amount of funds, we have been able to freeze,” Olukoyede said.

He explained that most of the money was moved using cryptocurrency, through wallets outside Nigeria. This makes it harder to track and recover the stolen funds.

“I will not sit down and tell you that we are going to restore every victim. It will become practically impossible because quite a certain amount of money has been dissipated and not within our system. We have traced to three, four countries now. In fact, the principal parties behind the entire scheme… most of them are foreigners.”

So far, three people have been arrested, and they have given helpful information. The EFCC is also working with foreign agencies to find more suspects and get back the missing money.

In April, CBEX users complained they couldn’t access their money. Later, Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed that CBEX was not a registered trading platform. The EFCC has declared nine people wanted in connection with the scam, including a foreigner and eight Nigerians.