These are some of the crimes outlined based on the allegations against Dozy Mmobuosi.
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Perpetrating an ongoing fraud of ‘staggering’ proportions.
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Creating fake financial statements and forged supporting material.
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Falsely portraying Tingo Mobile as a thriving and profitable enterprise with fake revenue, profit, and available cash.
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Fabricating operations and earnings for Tingo Mobile to cause artificial overvaluation of companies’ shares.
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Creating imaginary suppliers and customers with falsified websites and email addresses.
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Overstating revenues, expenses, profits, and assets of his companies to enable a huge fraud.
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Orchestrating fraudulent sales between his companies to maintain the illusion of a real business.
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Misappropriating assets, including manipulating funds for personal gain.
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Selling stock using misleading information about the company’s performance.
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False advertising by claiming non-existent airline operations and misleading publicity about facility openings and deals.
Remember that flashy Nigerian dude, Dozy Mmobuosi? The one with the fancy title of “Tech Guru Changing Agriculture”? Turns out, his whole empire might be built on air, like those fancy castles kids draw!
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the guys who keep the Wall Street in check, dropped a bombshell this week. They’re accusing Dozy of pulling off a mega-fraud, the kind that makes even Yahoo Boys say “oga, calm down.”
Dozy’s company, Tingo Mobile, was supposed to be connecting farmers in Naija with fancy phones and techy stuff. But the SEC says it was all a big fat lie. No farmers, no phones, just empty pockets and a whole lot of fake documents.
Imagine building castles out of thin air, that’s what they’re saying Dozy did. He cooked up fake bank statements, customer lists, and even websites for pretend suppliers, all to make it look like Tingo was a billion-dollar business.
And guess what? It worked, at least for a while. Investors threw money at Tingo like it was going out of style, pushing the company’s value up to a whopping N3.2 trillion. Dozy, meanwhile, was living the high life, splashing cash on fancy cars, private jets, and even trying to buy a Premier League football team (Sheffield United, if you’re curious). Agba baller moves!
But the party couldn’t last forever. A group called Hindenburg Research, basically financial detectives with a nose for trouble, started sniffing around Tingo. They found more red flags, from nonexistent farmers to photoshopped planes.
But the jig is up, oga! The SEC wants him to cough up all that ill-gotten gain, and he’s facing serious charges. It’s a big fall from grace for Mr. Mmobuosi, from GQ cover boy to potential jailbird
This whole thing is a big eye-opener. It shows how even in the fancy world of tech and finance, things can be rotten to the core. It’s a reminder to always do your research before investing your hard-earned cash, and to be wary of anyone promising get-rich-quick schemes that sound too good to be true.
So, the next time you see someone bragging about their billion-dollar business, remember Dozy Mmobuosi and ask yourself, “Na real money, or na Photoshop?