Adelani Adepegba and Ifeanyi Onuba
The Nigeria Police Force has said it
does not have any directive from the
government to arrest operators or
participants of the MMM , a Ponzi
scheme.
It also explained that it would not go
after operators or participants in the
scheme because no one had
complained about being swindled by
the programme.
The police stated this on Saturday just as the Securities and Exchange
Commission warned Nigerians
against patronising the scheme.
There were reports that the MMM
scheme, which was suspended by its operators in December last year, had commenced operations on Friday.
The scheme directed its members to
provide ‘ help and get help ,’ urging
them to make use of the cryptocurrency, bitcoin , for their
transactions .
The Force Public Relations Officer ,
Donald Awunah, a Commissioner of
Police , told Sunday PUNCH on
Saturday that the police had no plans to go after the operators of the
scheme, stressing that there were no
complaints against them .
“ We are not going after the operators because there is no complaint from anyone that he was swindled by them . No one has complained against them , so we have no reason to go after them . Also, there is no directive
from the government to arrest the
operators or shut them down , ” he
explained .
The Corporate Communications
Manager , SEC, Naif Abdulsalam , when asked if the commission had made any formal complaint to the security agencies on the activities of the promoters of the scheme, said he would not be able to comment on
that .
“ I won ’t be able to speak on that
now , ” he said and declined further
comment .
He , however, warned Nigerians
against patronising the Ponzi scheme, stating that its activities were not regulated by the commission or the Central Bank of Nigeria . Abdusalam told one of our
correspondents during a telephone
interview that the commission would continue to enlighten capital market investors .
