The incredible tale of the northern big hitters caught up in billion dollar fraud
The Lancashire knight, the Cheshire entrepreneur and the African tycoon who tried to buy Sheffield United
It reads like the script for a highly implausible TV drama and its cast list includes the Lancashire knight, the Cheshire entrepreneur and the African tycoon who tried to buy Sheffield United Football Club.
The FBI triggers a manhunt for a fraudster called Dozi who tries to buy fast cars, mansions and a Premier League football club with the proceeds from a New York-listed African fintech business based on an audacious billion dollar fraud.
In the supporting cast is a well-connected former Conservative MP and senior Freemason who sat on the same board of directors of a global agritech, mobile and fintech business that was engaged in a reverse merger.
And then there’s its former CEO, a seasoned ‘rainmaker’ and once the owner of a popular Cheshire gastropub, who retires from the company to spend more time with his wife, a Danish supermodel.
Events have unfolded fast in the strange tale of Tingo Inc. In December the American regulator the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a devastating 65-page case alleging that the scope of the fraud at Tingo, Inc was “staggering”.
In parallel, the US Department for Justice has also filed an indictment after an investigation by the FBI that between 2019 to 2023, Mmobuosi Odogwu Banye, popularly known as Dozy Mmobuosi, orchestrated a scheme to enrich himself by falsely representing that the Nigerian companies he founded, Tingo Mobile and Tingo Foods, were operational, profitable businesses, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, but he also traded shares after spikes in price, triggered by the false information.
The SEC also claims that Mmobuosi essentially created a fake company with “no meaningful operations or customers” and only had about $15 in its bank account.
They further go on to allege that “non-existent revenues and assets” were falsely reported in Tingo’s formal filings (a 10-K form).
Accounts that were reported to have a cash balance of $461.7 million actually had less than $50 in them.
Facing charges are Mmobuosi and three named companies Tingo Group, Agrifintech Holdings and Tingo International Holdings.
The Cheshire-based entrepreneur Darren Mercer, who retired as chief executive of Tingo in September 2023 is not named in the SEC complaint and is not facing charges.
Similarly, the indictment and the complaint do not name Sir David Trippier, former Conservative MP for Rossendale, and the Grand Master of the Freemasons in the North West, and a board director of Tingo.
Nor are any charges directed against veteran Manchester stockbroker John McMillan Scott, the chairman of Tingo.
But both the FBI statement and SEC complaint pull few punches and accuse Mmobuosi of booking billions of dollars’ worth of fictitious transactions through two Nigerian subsidiary companies he founded and controls.
With Mmobuosi on the run, questions about when the alleged deceit began and ended may never be satisfactorily answered.
When TheBusinessDesk.com contacted Sir David Trippier he said he was unable to comment as it was a “legal matter” but very much gave the impression that as an existing director of Tingo he too was party to actions to pursue Mmobuosi.
But it’s worth looping back at the chain of events that led to the current extraordinary scenario.
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