Another online investment platform has shut its doors on Nigerian investors. PXES, which promised returns of up to 120 per cent, stopped paying out and went dark in early September, leaving members unable to withdraw funds or reach its operators.
The platform’s website, pxesng.com, is now inaccessible, its WhatsApp channel has been blocked, and its Facebook page, PXES NG, has not posted since 21 June. Investors who put in sums ranging from tens of thousands to millions of naira are left with no clear route to recovering their money and no explanation from the people who ran the scheme.
Anger boiled over quickly. Investors stormed PXES offices in Yola, Adamawa State, and Kabba, Kogi State, after withdrawals became impossible. Videos circulating online showed people removing chairs, tables and other items from the Yola branch. Similar scenes were reported in Kabba. Before the offices were shut, the Kabba manager had reportedly sent a message assuring investors that management would compensate them for their patience — a promise that proved hollow when the office closed three days later.
Investors who spoke to the press painted a consistent picture of ordinary people drawn in by social proof and high-yield promises. Bunmi Awodipe told PUNCH she invested N200,000 after three friends showed her evidence of receiving returns. Deji Mulero said a customer introduced him to the platform and that he lost N65,000 when it stopped operating. A third investor, who gave his name as Wale, said he had registered with N207,000 and watched his account balance grow to nearly N600,000 on the platform’s dashboard — money he can no longer access. One unnamed investor reportedly put in around N209,000.
PXES operated a tiered membership structure. Participants paid set amounts to join, gained access to an online dashboard and could recruit new members to build their networks — a model that bears the hallmarks of a pyramid scheme rather than a legitimate investment vehicle. The platform allegedly promised returns of between 25 and 50 per cent on standard packages, with some tiers offering as much as 120 per cent. No credible investment strategy sustains those figures; they are the arithmetic of schemes that depend on a constant flow of new money.
Questions about whether PXES was ever authorised by Nigerian regulators to collect investment funds from the public remain unanswered. The platform’s operators have not made any public statement.
This collapse lands less than two years after a string of high-return scheme failures that devastated Nigerian savers. In April 2025, Crypto Bridge Exchange (CBEX) imploded, with an estimated 600,000 investors losing a combined sum put at roughly N1.3 trillion. CBEX had promised 100 per cent returns within 30 days through supposed AI-powered trading. Shortly after, the NRC investment scheme also collapsed, having attracted thousands of investors with promises tied to supposed real estate returns. The pattern is identical each time: extravagant promises, rapid growth, then silence — and investors left to count the cost.