EFCC Arraigns Two Firms for Alleged Illegal Capital Market Operations in Lagos

Court

By JUMOKE SANNI

The Lagos Zonal Directorate 2 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Okotie-Eboh, Ikoyi, Lagos, on Monday, June 16, 2025, arraigned two companies, FARM360 Limited and MCBHADMOS Trans- Atlantic before Justice D.I. Dipeolu of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi , Lagos.

The companies were arraigned on a five-count charge bordering on operating collective investment schemes without a licence either by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, or the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC.

It was alleged that both firms, between 2021 and 2022, collected the sum of N80,000,000.00 ( Eighty Million Naira) from several investors, but defaulted in refunding them or paying back the interests accrued on their investments.

One of the counts reads: ”That you, FARM360 LIMITED and MCBHADMOS TRANS-ATLANTIC TRADE LIMITED, sometime between 2021 and 2022 in Nigeria, within the Judicial Division of this Honourable court, being companies incorporated in Nigeria, failed to obtain a valid licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria to carry on your business of Investment management and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 57 of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act 2020 and punishable under Sections 57(5) of the same Act.”

A “not guilty” plea was entered for the company.

The prosecution counsel, Abdulhamid .L.Tukur, consequently, called on Nnadikwu Izuchukwu Collins, an investigator with the EFCC, to review the fact of the case.

Collins stated that the EFCC, on October 21, 2022, received a petition from a group of investors against the defendants, FARM360 and MCBHADMOS RANS-ATLANTIC TRADE LIMITED, alleging that they claimed to be into agricultural business and forex trading, “with mouth-watering promises of returns on investments .”