Fakoyejo Olalekan
Nigerian fintech entrepreneur, Dozy Mmobuosi, who is the founder of Tingo Group, has been accused by U.S. investment research firm, Hindenburg Research, of running a scam operation.
Hindenburg in a report on Tuesday said Mmobuosi has a trail of scams, one of which is allegedly falsely claiming to own a mobile business under Tingo Group, but doesn’t have a license from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Join our WhatsApp ChannelThe research firm also reported that he disclosed Tingo has a subsidiary in Ghana, it is not in operation according to their findings.
He also claimed to have been the first mobile payment app developer in Nigeria, however, findings showed that a different set of people developed the app he claimed as his, We contacted the app’s actual creator, who called Dozy’s claims “a pure lie”,” the report reads.
“Dozy claimed to have received a PhD in rural advancement from a Malaysian university in 2007. We contacted the school to verify the degree. They wrote back saying no one by his name was found in their verification system.
“In 2017, Dozy was arrested and faced an 8-count indictment over issuance of bad checks, according to the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. 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”. Media outlets later uncovered that Tingo had photoshopped its logo onto pictures of airplanes. Dozy later admitted to never owning any actual aircraft,” Hindenburg said.
Mmobuosi was also accused of cooking his company’s financials, manipulating the financial data of Tingo to allegedly deceive investors
“In April 2023, Tingo’s Co-Chairman wrote a public letter to Dozy, filed with the SEC, saying he could not approve the company’s annual report and felt it “necessary to recuse myself by resigning” due to “many critical questions, comments and recommendations” that went “unanswered and unheeded”,” the report noted.
It was also revealed that: “Tingo Group bought Tingo Foods from Dozy in February 2023 for $204 million, a price “approximately equal to the cost value of the inventory held by Tingo Foods”.
“The inventory, which was reported in year-end financials, completely vanished from Tingo’s Q1 2023 accounts without explanation. In our experience, $204 million in inventory doesn’t just disappear at companies with internal controls and genuine financial reporting.”
Other findings by Hindenburg Research include: “Tingo’s food division is 7 months old, yet claimed to generate $577.2 million in revenue last quarter alone, representing 68% of total reported revenue. If accurate, its claimed 24.8% operating margins would exceed those of every major comparable food company.
“Yet, Tingo has no food processing facility of its own. Rather, it claims its explosive revenue and profitability is derived from acting as a middleman between Nigerian farmers and an unnamed third-party food processor.
“In February 2023, the company held a groundbreaking ceremony for a planned $1.6 billion Nigerian food processing facility of its own, attended by the country’s agriculture minister and other political luminaries.
“We found that the rendering of the planned facility, featured in Tingo’s investor materials and on a billboard at the ceremony, is actually a rendering of an oil refinery from a stock photo website.
“Following its groundbreaking, Tingo reported in a May 2023 SEC filing that it made “significant progress” on the facility, including laying “the foundations of its numerous buildings”.
“We visited the site a week later and found zero signs of progress; it was empty except for the plaque and billboard commemorating the groundbreaking ceremony, surrounded by weeds.
“Subsequent to the “groundbreaking”, Tingo announced a $150 million agreement with a UK entity called Evtec Energy to build solar panels for its non-existent food processing facility. Funding for the deal is slated to be provided through Evtec, but UK filings show that Evtec was “Dormant” as of its most recent annual report and held zero cash in the bank.
“Tingo claimed in its reverse merger press release that members of 2 unnamed farming cooperatives supply the majority of its then-9.3 million userbase, consisting of local Nigerian farmers. These farmers supposedly form the core of the company’s phone customers and provide the agricultural products used in Tingo’s food processing and trading businesses.
“A local media outlet identified and contacted the cooperatives. Both said they had never heard of Tingo and had fewer than 100 farmers in each cooperative.
“We were able to make contact with one of the cooperatives. Its owner reiterated having no relationship with Tingo and flat out told us “they are scammers”.
“Tingo claimed its mobile handset leasing, call and data segments generated $128 million in revenue last quarter (~15% of total), claiming these services are provided through an agreement with Airtel in Nigeria. The type of license they claim did not exist until June, 2023.
“Our checks with the Nigerian Communications Commission showed it has no record of Tingo being a mobile licensee at all, despite company claims of having 12 million mobile customers.
“Despite claiming to have millions of farmers using its phones, Tingo Mobile’s corporate presentation and webpage uses stock photos of farmers using phones,” part of the report reads.
To read the full report, click here.
