The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), an independent agency of the Federal Government of Nigeria, has once again issued a warning against investing money online and in digital currencies.

The fresh warning was given by Managing Director Umaru Ibrahim at the ongoing 2007 Enugu International Trade Fair on Thursday. Premium Times reported that Ibrahim, who was represented by Nicolas Ibrahim, the NDIC Controller at Enugu Zonal Office, said:

“I wish to draw attention to emergence of the various Ponzi schemes, popularly called Mavrodi Mundial Movement (MMM) and other forms of digital and block-chain currencies.

“These ponzi schemes also came in form of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, Ripples, Monero, Litecoin, Dogecoin and Onecoin for medium of exchange and web based transactions which are neither authorised by the CBN nor insured by the NDIC”.

Similar warning was issued by Ibrahim last month at the 38th Kaduna International Trade Fair 2017. He said:

“The social media has estimated over N18 billion losses by about 3 million Nigerians in the ponzi scheme despite repeated warnings by the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) and NDIC. It is also very sad to note that recently some newspapers had been awash with reports of how some disgruntled elements have been floating local Ponzi schemes under various names with the intent of defrauding unsuspecting members of the public of their hard earned money.”