The Yenagoa based Barazar Multipurpose Cooperative Society claims it has refunded the investments of 109 of its subscribers in its Forex trading scheme following its failure to pay returns since March.

Barazar adopted the cooperative model to mobilise funds for foreign exchange trading where members share the profits and losses.

The scheme, which commenced operations 14 months ago offered 25 percent of contributions monthly until March 2021 when it failed to pay returns.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had on Thursday March 29 warned Nigerians to be wary of such schemes that offer mouth-watering returns as they risk losing their investment capital in such schemes.

The development sparked off speculations that the Barazaar scheme had crashed as investors besieged the Yenagoa headquarters of the scheme to request refunds of their capital.

The Chief Executive of Barazar, Mr. Miebi Briebena, on Friday during an update to members of the Cooperative in Yenagoa said the Society maintained that the scheme has not failed but had challenges which it was poised to overcome.

He said that the members of the Cooperative had resolved to suspend pay out of returns for 90 days to return the scheme to profitability.

He said that Barazar has however terminated the investment of some 109 members who subscribed to the scheme with N100,000 which amounted to N10.9 million.

According to him, the society has so far received 919 termination requests from its over 40,000 members in different states of the federation adding that the number indicated that only about 2.5 per cent of its members were leaving.

He said that the termination procedure is currently only open to members with N100,000 while those with higher contributions would be treated in due course.

He stated that the termination process takes a mandatory period of 30 days from the date the application is made.

Similar schemes have sprang up following the failure of Barazar to make the 25 per cent monthly return on invested funds offering between 30 and 35 per cent monthly.

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