The SEC had charged Mmobuosi with fraud for inflating the “financial performance metrics of his companies and key operating subsidiaries to defraud investors worldwide.”
Dozy Mmobuosi, a Nigerian businessman who attempted to purchase English football club Sheffield United last year, has been ordered to pay over $250 million in fines by a US federal court, Financial Times reports.
Judge Jesse M Furman of the Southern District of New York issued the final judgment by default against Mmobuosi and his companies—Tingo Group, Agri-Fintech Holdings, and Tingo International Holdings—after Mmobuosi did not respond to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil complaint filed last December.
The SEC had charged Mmobuosi with fraud for inflating the “financial performance metrics of his companies and key operating subsidiaries to defraud investors worldwide.”
The judge noted that Mmobuosi and his firms had “failed to answer, plead, or otherwise defend” themselves in the case. The SEC described Mmobuosi’s business empire as a “fiction.”
Tingo, Mmobuosi’s fintech group, claimed to have over 9 million customers in Nigeria and a food processing business.
However, the SEC’s complaint stated that the “purported assets, revenues, expenses, customers and suppliers” of Tingo were “virtually entirely fabricated,” with the scale of the fraud being “staggering.” Despite reporting $461.7 million in cash for 2022, Tingo’s actual balance was less than $50, according to the SEC.
Hindenburg Research, a US short seller, had previously labelled Tingo as an “exceptionally obvious scam,” leading to a dramatic drop in its stock price.
The SEC’s charges came after trading was halted in the shares of Tingo Group and Agri-Fintech Holdings due to concerns about the accuracy of their public information.
Mmobuosi gained attention with his bid to acquire Sheffield United, a Yorkshire-based club that recently fell to the second tier of English football. Mmobuosi and his companies have not yet responded to requests for comment.
On June 6, 2023, SaharaReporters reported that an investigation by Hindenburg Research had found that Tingo Group was an exceptionally obvious scam with completely fabricated financials.
Tingo Group which is headquartered in New Jersey, U.S., claims to have several business segments focused on providing mobile phones, food processing and an online food marketplace for farmers primarily located in Nigeria.
Dozy is regularly described by the media as a billionaire and reports about went viral this year when he attempted to buy Sheffield United, a football club in England which has just gained promotion to the Premier League.
He currently serves as the CEO of Tingo Group Holdings, the group’s key holding company entity. He has gained international attention, gracing the cover of GQ Africa in December 2022.
However, Hindenburg Research in its comprehensive report noted that it identified major red flags with Dozy’s background.
He appeared to have fabricated his biographical claim to have developed the first mobile payment app in Nigeria, the investigation revealed.
When Hindenburg Research contacted the app’s actual creator, identified as Deji Oguntonade, he called Dozy’s claims “totally false” & a “pure lie”.
Dozy claimed in his biography to have received a PhD in rural advancement from Malaysian university UPM in 2007. Also, this claim was also found to be false because when Hindenburg Research contacted UPM to verify the degree, the school wrote back and said no one by his name was found in its verification system.
In 2017, Dozy was arrested and faced an 8-count indictment over the issuance of bad checks, according to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigeria’s anti-graft agency.
He later settled the case in arbitration.
In 2019, Dozy claimed to have launched “Tingo Airlines” and posted social media messages encouraging customers to “fly with Tingo Airlines today”.
It was later uncovered that Tingo photoshopped its logo onto pictures of aeroplanes. Dozy later admitted to never owning any aircraft, saying Covid-19 pandemic affected its kick-off.
In April 2023, Tingo’s Co-Chair wrote a public letter to Dozy, filed with the SEC, saying he could not approve the company’s annual report & felt it “necessary” to “resign” due to “many critical questions, comments and recommendations” that went “unanswered and unheeded”.
