I run with one of two ideas.
1) It’s all simply the most brazen and outright fraud.
Yep:
There was just one small problem: Mmobuosi’s businesses, as they were commonly understood, may never have existed.
That is the extraordinary claim made this week by American regulators, who accused the 45-year-old Nigerian businessman – real name, Mmobuosi Odogwu Banye – of perpetrating an ongoing fraud of “staggering” proportions.
At its peak last year, his publicly traded company, Tingo Inc, was valued at $7.23bn (£5.7bn), according to Bloomberg data.
I believe I’ve shared this information before:
Tingo is an Indonesian word for the action of borrowing everything in a person’s house until nothing is left.
“the 45-year-old Nigerian businessman – real name, Mmobuosi Odogwu Banye – of perpetrating an ongoing fraud of “staggering” proportions.”
What’s the emoji for the halo/innocent looking face?
Nigerian guilty of massive fraud shocker.
What a hoot.
Seriously, if some chap walks up to you and says “I have this brilliant business that’s making a mint in Nigeria, do you want to invest?” What do you do?
Well, if you’re a City analyst you say “What could possibly go wrong?”
Oh, if only there had been some sign that the nice African gentleman with the assumed name and the too-good-to-be-true business was likely to be a fraud…
Well, if you’re a City analyst you say “What could possibly go wrong?”
There’s a certain truth in that. In recent decades, the financial world seems to have become an incredibly rich hunting ground if you’re looking for mugs. The whole Bitcoin thing I find literally incredible. I can remember a City where scepticism was an essential qualification. What ever happened to it? I suppose it was the result of employing the dregs of the universities.
Nigerian guilty of massive fraud shocker.
Yep, file under dog bites man.
Wirecard, anyone? Alleged gigantic dealings with shadowy entities in faraway places that turn out to be noodle shops or isolated farms?
From Madoff to Wirecard to Enron to this one, it’s just amazing how easy it is to create an entirely-illusory business structure of vast proportions entirely on paper and on a screen, how easy it would be for anyone with an ounce of financial nouse to figure it out, and yet how regularly they crop up. It’s almost like we want to be fooled.
llater,
llamas
There goes his seat in the HoL.
I wonder if any British councils invested tax payers’ dosh in this.