The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has warned investors to desist from dealing with four blacklisted Italian e-commerce companies.

A statement issued by the regulator on its website and seen by Daily Sun at the weekend gave the warning.

Daily Sun reports the the four companies include; Tetris Group Limited, Broker Capitals Limited, MTinvesting and NBIMarkets. The warning follows a report that the Italian securities regulator blacklisted the four e-commerce firms over fraudulent trading activities.

Part of the statement by the SEC said, “The attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigeria (“SEC”) has been drawn to a report that the Italian securities regulator, (Commissione Nazionale per le Soecieta’ e la Borsa – CONSOB) has blacklisted four (4) e-commerce companies and blocked their websites for fraudulent e-trading and unauthorized offering of financial services.

The report noted that online financial services providers leverage the complexity of their operations and limited understanding of most prospective investors to conceal details of their activities, thus plunging most investors into taking uninformed decisions. The CONSOB, therefore, called on investors to adopt the greatest diligence to make informed investment choices to safeguard their savings, including checking the registration status or otherwise of such companies”.

The statement by SEC further informed the Nigerian investing public that the aforementioned companies are not registered in Nigeria. The investment schemes promoted by the entities are also not authorised by the SEC.

In view of the above, the general public is hereby warned that any person dealing with the named companies in any capital market-related business is doing so at his/her own risk,” the Commission said.