Investors investing in unregulated schemes won’t be protected by SEC, says official

An official of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has warned that individuals and businesses investing in unregulated schemes will not be protected.

SEC’s head of Lagos zonal office, John Briggs addressed stakeholders at the inaugural VNL Capital investors’ roundtable held recently.

The warning comes in the wake of a surge in the proliferation of fraudulent investment initiatives in Nigeria, with prominent figures sometimes used for promotion to lure unsuspecting victims.

On February 11, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general (DG) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), alerted Nigerians to a fake AI-manipulated video promoting an investment scheme online in her name.

In 2025, Nigerians lost about N1.3 trillion to CBEX, a crypto platform, leading to the looting of the company by aggrieved investors.

The SEC later found that the firm was an unregistered entity, promising to “hunt them down”.

Speaking at the event, Briggs said many businesses and individuals invest in “investment products that are not regulated by the commission”.

“Now, when you do that, the challenge is that we will not be able to protect you,” the SEC zonal coordinator said.

“The essence of investor protection is to make sure that only products that will return reasonably. People look for high-end returns.

“And of course, if you look at the risk to return, the higher the risk, the higher the returns. And that is where people get their fingers burnt.”

Briggs acknowledged the proliferation of “a lot of investment opportunities,” but advised investors to make sure they keep their “risk appetite”.

“If you know your risk capital is not as much as the other man, don’t just jump into any investment,” he said.

“…the key to investment from a regulator will be that don’t invest beyond your risk appetite, so that you don’t injure yourself. In this country, we have seen families scamming themselves. I use the word scamming because somebody needs to exit, for another person to come in. Some people will need to bring in their wives for them to exit. We saw it happen in Nigeria. You now need to market somebody else, your close friend, because you need to exit.

“And we see a lot of Ponzi schemes that are happening from our own regulatory point of view. So be careful of what you invest [in], always attend forums like this, and we appreciate VNL for having this kind of opportunity. And we are the SEC, we are always available to respond to any inquiries.”