By Adedapo Adesanya
The founder of the financial technology company, Tingo Group, Mr Dozy Mmobuosi, has been officially charged with securities fraud in New York, the US.
He is accused of orchestrating a massive scheme to inflate the company’s finances as well as artificially boosting financial statements to make Tingo and its subsidiaries appear liquid.
He allegedly directed an employee to give false bank statements to Nasdaq to list Tingo Mobile shares on the exchange in 2020 and then generated millions of Dollars in profit by selling shares at inflated prices, the US suit claimed.
Mr Mmobuosi is currently at large, with his whereabouts unknown.
Speaking on the latest development, the Southern District of New York US Attorney, Mr Damian Williams, said, “With this indictment, Mmobuosi’s alleged deceitful scheme comes to an end.”
The US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), on Monday, December 18, 2023, alleged that “since at least 2019, Mr Mmobuosi spearheaded a scheme to fabricate financial statements and other documents of the three entities and their Nigerian operating subsidiaries, Tingo Mobile Limited and Tingo Foods PLC.”
The SEC’s complaint, filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges all four defendants with violating the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws.
Mr Mmubuosi was reportedly set to be charged based on insider trading, falsehood, failure to disclose the sale of millions of common shares for which he was the ultimate beneficial owner, and internal controls violations.
The SEC also moved to freeze Mr Mmobuosi’s assets, as well as stop Tingo and its subsidiaries from transferring money or property or issuing shares to Mmobuosi and to restrict the defendants from selling or otherwise disposing of their respective holding in Agri-Fintech and/or Tingo Group stock.
It was alleged that legitimate bank records from the company showed less than $50 in comparison to the $461.7 million it reported in one of its filings to the exchange where it traded its stocks.
