A council in Wales has been rebuked by the auditor general after it was tricked into giving away 10 per cent of its annual budget to a fraudster.
Officials at Harlech Community Council, in North Wales, made an “advance payment” of £9,000 of taxpayers’ money to a man named Oluwafeni Odunuga for “consultative work”.
They were only alerted to the fraud when HSBC told the authority that it was the victim of an “authorised push payment” scam in which criminals trick people into transferring money.
One of the problems with migration is that foreign names are no longer quite the alarm bell they used to be.
Still, to be fair, they’re not quite so deluded as Novo Integrated Sciences. A provider of Tai Chi style health care in California. Who have been regaling the market for months now with news about all the lovely capital they’re – no, really – about to receive:
So, why? Well, there’s the idea that this money is about to come through: “Novo Integrated Sciences Advised Receipt of Proceeds of RC Consulting Promissory Note Expected in 3-5 Business Days” As we’ve commented on that before we don’t think so, we really don’t. That cash is not about to arrive at Novo Integrated: “15 year unsecured money at one and a half percent? No, doesn’t exist. “The RC Note is unsecured and there is no provision for the conversion of debt, issuance of any class of shares, or the grant of any warrants by the Company to the Buyer. The Company is expecting to receive an initial draw against the $57,000,000 in the near future.” No, we do not believe this. There are no circumstances under which we would believe this.”
They’ve also announced this: “BELLEVUE, Wash., November 3, 2023 – Novo Integrated Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: NVOS) (the “Company” or “Novo”) today announced the issuance of the underlying One Billion Dollar gold backed bond (the “Bond”) specific to the previously disclosed Master Collateral Transfer Agreement. The issuance of the Bond is the initial step in the establishment of the instrument to commence the legal transfer of the collateral for the exclusive benefit of the Company. The instrument is subject to filings and safekeeping deposit creating authentication and validation for the transfer and leverage of the collateral for the benefit of perspective lenders.”
Simply deluded.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
But teach an African how to phish…
What puzzled me when reading this story yesterday was that the annual council budget was allegedly below £100k.
Precisely how many council taxpayers are there in Harlech? It would have to be less than 100 with zero entities paying business rates.
Is a “Community Council” something different to a local authority or, given the usual innumeracy of such articles, did the enterprising Mr Odunuga actually get away with considerably more than £9k?
I have a strong feeling that this is a parish council renamed…..
They thought they were paying him to be a diversity advisor.
“Community Council” is welsh for “Parish Council”. Parish councils only precept residential council tax, they don’t receive anything from business property taxes. We’ve noticed it especially as our tax base has been tumbling precipitously as so many residential properties (residential tax) get converted to holiday lets (commercial tax). It’s one of the reasons I push so strongly for user-pay services, why should the less than 10,000 or so tax payers pay for the services used by the million or so annual non-taxpaying visitors?
That second para about Novo sounds just like the 419 emails of yore.
Exactly so. I’m about the only journalist saying so too. Everyone knows it but it’s a difficult thing to say in a major newspaper. A major newspaper in Bangladesh tho’, there you can say it…..the company itself keeps putting out press releases insisting the money’s about to arrive and that they’ll not pay any commissions until it does. Hmm.
Tim,
Why don’t they put your name on the (Dhaka) article? It’s your writing style. Just curious.
Didn’t realise my style was that obvious. The stock market pieces. At some point, if I can make this business actually work, then other writers will come in as well. So, run it under a generic name….