The social media went agog on Tuesday, June 6, as Hindenburg Research, a U.S. investment research firm focused on activist short-selling, exposed Tingo Group, a fintech company, of being an exceptionally obvious scam with completely fabricated financials.
While Tingo Group claims to have diversified business interests in mobile phones, food processing, and online food marketplace for farmers primarily located in Nigeria, investigation proved otherwise as the company reportedly lied about its $1.6 billion food processing plant.
In fact, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) does not have a record of Tingo being a mobile licensee despite claims of having 12 million mobile customers in Nigeria.
In a bid to deceive its prospective customers, Dozy Mmobuosi, founder of the controversial company, used stock photos of farmers using mobile phones on the Tingo Mobile company website.
When Hindenburg Research undercover journalists visited Tingo Mobile’s office, they met an office with a seal of federal tax authorities stating that the company is delinquent on its tax obligation.
Apart from running dubious business activities, Mmobuosi, who was in the news earlier this year for trying to buy Sheffield United, a newly promoted Premier League team, was said to have ‘doctored’ parts of his personal and professional credentials.
While he claimed to have received a PhD in rural advancement from a Malaysian university in 2007, the school said “no one by his name was found in their verification system.”
In 2019, Dozy claimed to have launched “Tingo Airlines” and posted social media messages encouraging customers to fly with Tingo Airlines but it was later discovered that he photoshopped its logo onto pictures of airplanes he never owned.
“We strongly suspect Tingo’s cash balance, which it conveniently claims is held in Nigeria, is fake. The company collected only ~12% of the interest income one would expect from its claimed cash balances. Overall, we think Tingo is a worthless and brazen fraud that should serve as a humiliating embarrassment for all involved. We do not expect the company will be long for this world,” Hindenburg Research explained.
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Meanwhile, Nigerians on social media, particularly Twitter have reacted differently. One of them, Mashudu Modau said: “I need more entrepreneurs reading stories like this so you can stop comparing your journey to what you see in the media” .
A twitter user, @ennyola0015 said: “We thought after Hushpuppi, no Nigeria will ever come close. He literally broke Hushpuppi’s records and set new ones” .
Also, @AdeRKGold said: “Let’s tell ourselves the truth, we have a very big fraud problem affecting our global image. Yes, there’s corruption everywhere but other countries have plenty of positive things publicised & fraud/drugs is not their whole identity. We need to take a hard stand on this as a nation!”.
BattaFiles understands that Nigerian politicians including Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omokri, Peter Obi and many others have in the past been seen hanging out with Dozy Mmobuosi and even endorsed him as one of the citizens representing the country well globally. It is not clear whether these politicians have knowledge of his dubious activities.
