Hundreds of investors are now panicky after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) sealed off the head office of Baraza Multipurpose Cooperative Society building in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, following petitions and allegations that the scheme has crashed with billions of investors’ funds.
Written boldly on the building by the antigraft agency was the inscription: “EFCC, under investigation”.
Baraza is a financial contributory investment cooperative which promised 25% return on investment to its contributors. However, after few months of operations, reports say Bazara slumped into a catastrophic financial crisis which made it difficult to pay investors their 25% monthly surpluses for over five months.
CEO of Baraza, Pastor Bribena, had promised investors that the cooperative would come back on stream on July 19, 2021 and would begin payment with those he called first timers, after which others would also be paid, but the cooperative has failed to act accordingly.
There are fears, especially amongst old investors, that the scheme may be going the way of MBA Forex, another cooperative which crashed recently with over N170 billion of investors funds.
