Fakoyejo Olalekan
The founder of FarmKonnect Agribusiness Nigeria Limited, Oluwole Azeez Saheed, has been declared wanted by the Nigerian Police Force over alleged investment fraud.
Saheed was accused of creating an agric investment opportunity to fraud unsuspecting persons, and was able to raise N50 million. Effort by investors to retrieve their investment and profit have proved abortive.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelRecall that following outcry from investors, FarmKonnect had disclosed that its founder would be unavailable for calls or messages for three months due to an undisclosed health condition.
The agric firm also halted payment of returns on investment to investors, stating that the business has been handed to a third party.
In a new development, the Nigerian Police declared Saheed wanted following petition from Chive GPS, which states, “We are retained by ‘our clients’ and on whose express instruction we write to lay a criminal complaint of a well-orchestrated theft, fraud, and obtaining money by false pretences against Oluwole Azeez Saheed herein referred to as Azeez, and for him to be placed on a red notice.
“Sometime in 2019, Azeez through FarmKonnect invaded the social media space and other medium advertising for investment and posed as investment mogul that can manage the public’s funds in various agricultural enterprise in exchange for fixed return at a predetermined rate and duration.”
Chive GPS said the “large-scale fraud” was packaged and designed to yield fixed interests, and after N50 million was transferred to Farmkonnect, Saheed ended all communications and has remained unreachable.
“Oblivious of the large-scale fraud ahead, our clients transferred, at various times the sum of Fifty Million Five Hundred Thousand Naira (N50,500,000) into the corporate accounts of Farmkonnect Agribusiness Nigeria Ltd.
“The proposed transaction was packaged and designed to yield fixed interests. However, upon expiration of the investment, the chief mastermind Azeez stopped any form of communications with our clients and have since become evasive, switched off their phones and currently unreachable.
“We believe this may have been a premeditated fraud which was disguised as a legal investment scheme owing to false representations. We believe they may have also swindled thousands of persons of billions of Naira and they may have diverted the funds into real estate and other personal endeavours.” The petition reads.
