₦airaland Forum

The only crime most of this victims faced is that they want to invest their money......nothing more!
The rate at which this fraudulent people scam and dupe people of their hard earned money is being made easy by Nigerians banking system.imagine one cannot save his or her money in bank and have peace.the rate they will deducting unnecessary fees will just be annoying.
Imagine saving 1million in bank for 6months only to end up having 999,868.35 ..the stupid bank will not give you interest but they will be quick to deduct every stupid fees monthly..
Also our government Agency,like the CAC.this people enable this scammer to perpetrate their evil deed.imagine registering a company name under your agency without full legal requirements. Some of us that run retail business and we are so happy that is easy to register business name through CAC, that easy process is what this fraudulent guy capitalized on also.in a normal environment,to register a company you must have a stable address,bank account , referees. and details of your business,how is going to be run,manage,and the funding etc. All this are details that should be scrutinized by CAC official but for 9ja my country you will see ghost company with no address no banking detail for the management,no real name or details, imaginary referees,..the funny thing is this scammer will go to the lent of hosting a functional website and yet they will not be traced.because this shit hole is just full of shits
I have actually fall victims of this people, most people will think is greed that make people to fall victims,the actual truth is that i just want my money to be save at least if is not increasing it should not decreased.there is nothing that pained or annoyed more to be looking at your hard earned money reducing every month by the bank all in name they are deducting useless charges .

omoadeleye:
Sorry guys, they didn't scam anyone they just ran into debt and can't pay back and can't withstand investors again so they had to skedaddle.

Just move on to another scheme

That is the unfortunate fact. However only few will believe it. Wait till you set up business with people's money and run into problem with the business, then you will know exactly how the CEOs of some of these companies are feeling.

Yes it is true that some companies are set up with the simple aim of scamming, however it isn't all companies. Some had good long term vision and intentions but still ended up failing.

NoToPile:
Agritech investments that year


Most of them ran down due to debt I guess not necessarily scam, intention to scam or ponzi it was more of crowd funding.

The ROIs they promised seemed not sustainable in the long run and then there was one Sec policy that came later on.

Then came the emails upon emails with orishirishi explanations and then they just went quiet.

I still feel the problem was from the ROIs, 15-20% seemed much if you ask me some were even higher .

I want to think if there are still any one of them in business (which I doubt) it will be the ones with max 10%RO1.

There is/was an agritech investment thread on NL.

God bless you. You have said it all
Their ROI was unsustainable on the long run, and unfortunately for them so many came out at the same time, leading to competition among them. So they started increasing ROI to look more appealing to investors than their competitions. Unknown to them, they were digging their own graves.

Many of them were building the business and farms and bidding time to stabilize. And stabilizing such businesses takes years. Unfortunately, the SEC new rule broke the camel's back.

tymicjay77:
The only crime most of this victims faced is that they want to invest their money......nothing more!
The rate at which this fraudulent people scam and dupe people of their hard earned money is being made easy by Nigerians banking system.imagine one cannot save his or her money in bank and have peace.the rate they will deducting unnecessary fees will just be annoying.
Imagine saving 1million in bank for 6months only to end up having 999,868.35 ..the stupid bank will not give you interest but they will be quick to deduct every stupid fees monthly..
Also our government Agency,like the CAC.this people enable this scammer to perpetrate their evil deed.imagine registering a company name under your agency without full legal requirements. Some of us that run retail business and we are so happy that is easy to register business name through CAC, that easy process is what this fraudulent guy capitalized on also.in a normal environment,to register a company you must have a stable address,bank account , referees. and details of your business,how is going to be run,manage,and the funding etc. All this are details that should be scrutinized by CAC official but for 9ja my country you will see ghost company with no address no banking detail for the management,no real name or details, imaginary referees,..the funny thing is this scammer will go to the lent of hosting a functional website and yet they will not be traced.because this shit hole is just full of shits
I have actually fall victims of this people, most people will think is greed that make people to fall victims,the actual truth is that i just want my money to be save at least if is not increasing it should not decreased.there is nothing that pained or annoyed more to be looking at your hard earned money reducing every month by the bank all in name they are deducting useless charges .

Buy Treasury Bills, Commercial papers, Money Market Funds or FGN bonds with your money, these will give you between 10% to 16% per annum.

That is far better than losing your money to scammers through their High Yield Investment Schemes

Sad when I see people loose millions that could have actually changed their lives forever. One major factor here is greed. Any business guaranteeing consistent payout of more than 15% per annum is definitely a scam, not to talk of 35% in 9months. I also wonder how these scammers sleep at night.

Shun Ponzi Schemes.

PonziHater

BloomingDale:
“At this point, Ayoola decided to push all his earnings into the business”

Lol. 😀🤣😂😀

A retired banker for that matter! They're the ones who are always advising investors not to put their eggs in one basket.
With that money, he could have easily become a distributor of a particular well known FMCG in his area.

sgtponzihater1:
Sad when I see people loose millions that could have actually changed their lives forever. One major factor here is greed. Any business guaranteeing consistent payout of more than 15% per annum is definitely a scam , not to talk of 35% in 9months. I also wonder how these scammers sleep at night.

Shun Ponzi Schemes.

PonziHater

My brother, it is not a greed per se. 15-30% annual return is even small, you would agree with me if you are a business man.
Our people's problem is that many are lazy, they don't want to use their money to make money themselves. They're always looking for people who could do that for them. That is the problem.

tymicjay77:
The only crime most of this victims faced is that they want to invest their money......nothing more!
The rate at which this fraudulent people scam and dupe people of their hard earned money is being made easy by Nigerians banking system.imagine one cannot save his or her money in bank and have peace.the rate they will deducting unnecessary fees will just be annoying.
Imagine saving 1million in bank for 6months only to end up having 999,868.35 ..the stupid bank will not give you interest but they will be quick to deduct every stupid fees monthly..

FCMB put negative balances in my account and that of my daughter's account when I left minimum balance in the accounts.

omoadeleye:
Sorry guys, they didn't scam anyone they just ran into debt and can't pay back and can't withstand investors again so they had to skedaddle.

Just move on to another scheme

Porksupplyib:
That is the unfortunate fact. However only few will believe it. Wait till you set up business with people's money and run into problem with the business, then you will know exactly how the CEOs of some of these companies are feeling.

Yes it is true that some companies are set up with the simple aim of scamming, however it isn't all companies. Some had good long term vision and intentions but still ended up failing.

It was a ponzi scheme, CEOs never lose. Know that and know peace. They always wait for the investors to join enmass and with huge amount of money after gain their trust over a period of time.
May be you guys know better than the people who worked with them

.

NoToPile:
Agritech investments that year


Most of them ran down due to debt I guess not necessarily scam, intention to scam or ponzi it was more of crowd funding.

The ROIs they promised seemed not sustainable in the long run and then there was one Sec policy that came later on.

Then came the emails upon emails with orishirishi explanations and then they just went quiet.

I still feel the problem was from the ROIs, 15-20% seemed much if you ask me some were even higher .

I want to think if there are still any one of them in business (which I doubt) it will be the ones with max 10%RO1.

There is/was an agritech investment thread on NL.

All of them had one thing in common, they're running ponzi scheme. So, they knew how it was gonna end from the start. They just had to divert as much investors money into their own pockets as possible before bubbles would busrt. Simple
You said it yourself that ROI wasn't sustainable. Now, ask yourself, how were they sustaining it in the beginning?
If they were not using Peter's money to pay Paul all along, why couldn't they return the investors money back once they realise that it wasn't sustainable? That's because one quarter of the total money has gone back to investors in form ROIs, another one quarter has gone into payments of workers and other bonuses they're always paying their agents and another one quarter in the private accounts of the ponzi scheme CEOs and probably, they used the remaining one quarter to set up their crappy facilities to deceive the "investors"

maasoap:
My brother, it is not a greed per se. 15-30% annual return is even small, you would agree with me if you are a business man.
Our people's problem is that many are lazy, they don't want to use their money to make money themselves. They're always looking for people who could thats for them. That is the problem.

If you run your business yourself you can get 30% and above, but it is not guaranteed.


An investment that gives a guaranteed passive income of over 20% per annum is probably a scam unless it is a government security

emmanuelewumi:
If you run your business yourself you can get 30% and above, but it is not guaranteed.

Agreed

An investment that gives a guaranteed passive income of over 20% per annum is probably a scam unless it is a government security

Agreed

greggng:
Nigerians are too gullible ...even though our youths are many in the 419 business , our people are too gullible ...we fall for any business venture especially if the return is so high . Everyone saw how MMM ended some peoples life .. they didn't learn from it.

There is one called Oxford that operates with several offices in gowon estate ...he goes with many securities ...you might even thunk he is the owner of Nigeria. Many times his field staff will approach me with there flyers stating all there business ventures ...I know many guys whose money are hanging in that establishment ...Pls shine your eyes ...anything that gives you big return quickly is not always a legit business

You see that Oxford group, there is nothing they are / were into, nothing. They also sold pepper farm that year I think.

Real estate, oil and gas, consultancy, agriculture kilode. It's just too much and it raised an eyebrow from me.

At least the Agrictech people focused on farms.

miqos02:
sometimes they can be very tempting

Sure, but I no do se🤣🤣🤣🤣

Anything investment, count me out. Money made is for money to enjoyed. One life to live mehn.

maasoap:
All of them had one thing in common, they're running ponzi scheme. So, they knew how it was gonna end from the start. They just had to divert as much investors money into their own pockets as possible before bubbles would busrt. Simple
You said it yourself that ROI wasn't sustainable. Now, ask yourself, how were they sustaining it in the beginning?
If they were not using Peter's money to pay Paul all along, why couldn't they return the investors money back once they realise that it wasn't sustainable? That's because one quarter of the total money has gone back to investors in form ROIs, another one quarter has gone into payments of workers and other bonuses they're always paying their agents and another one quarter in the private accounts of the ponzi scheme CEOs and probably, they used the remaining one quarter to set up their crappy facilities to deceive the "investors"

I don't think the bolded is right for 'some' of them. MMM is a typical Ponzi, I wouldn't call this a typical ponzi.

Some were legit businesses with physical farms, physical products with legit intentions besides the crowd funding model has been around for a long time and people were getting returns from their investment

It became digitalized that's all and boom.

3 major problems

1. The ROIs were too high well I guess they did it to attract customers.

2. I still think they had too much funds and mismanagement began, these people raised bastard money imagine selling 10,000 units of a farm for 50k each and it gets sold old in a day. That's a whole lot of money and your fingers could get itchy.

3. The business failed, lots of businesses packed up 2021-2023

4. Sec regulation hit the final blow on most of them.

Some may have had intention to fraud but not all.

Porksupplyib:
God bless you. You have said it all
Their ROI was unsustainable on the long run, and unfortunately for them so many came out at the same time, leading to competition among them. So they started increasing ROI to look more appealing to investors than their competitions. Unknown to them, they were digging their own graves.

Many of them were building the business and farms and bidding time to stabilize. And stabilizing such businesses takes years. Unfortunately, the SEC new rule broke the camel's back.

A solid point @bolded.

@farmforte food VALLEY.. some names that are obviously dubious

NoToPile:
I don't think the bolded is right for 'some' of them. MMM is a typical Ponzi, I wouldn't call this a typical ponzi.

Some were legit businesses with physical farms, physical products with legit intentions besides the crowd funding model has been around for a long time and people were getting returns from their investment

It became digitalized that's all and boom.

Physical facilities that couldn't match or justify the billions of naira that they collect from the investors, dey there.

3 major problems

1. The ROIs were too high well I guess they did it to attract customers.

2. I still think they had too much funds and mismanagement began, these people raised bastard money imagine selling 10,000 units of a farm for 50k each and it gets sold old in a day. That's a whole lot of money and your fingers could get itchy.

And you still say they're not scam, lol. Collecting money they could never invest, yet investors would be expecting returns and their capitals.

3. The business failed, lots of businesses packed up 2021-2023

4. Sec regulation hit the final blow on most of them.

Some may have had intention to fraud but not all.

Those were not businesses but decorations to deceive people into parting with their money

I saw one online, work at home using online shops like eBay amazon and Co, there is no app for the trade and communication is through telegram....just put in some money they will forward a set of task of putting out some items out in the cart and once you finish the task you earn a commission just did with small amount but am scared anyone encountered such?

maasoap:
My brother, it is not a greed per se. 15-30% annual return is even small, you would agree with me if you are a business man.
Our people's problem is that many are lazy, they don't want to use their money to make money themselves. They're always looking for people who could do that for them. That is the problem.

I totally agree with you that laziness is also a huge factor, a lot of people will rather others do the research and thinking for them. But, as a PonziHater for years, I find greed mostly drives people into these monkey differences. Many people who loose as much as 40million are not ignorant or lazy about making money.

There is a difference between business and investment. Many people including those doing business do not know this.

Business provide profits, just like work provide wages. But investment is taking from that profit or income to build freedom in the future. While I make money everyday, I should take a portion of that money to keep somewhere so when I cannot make money daily, I have something tomorrow.
If I save that money, It looses value due to inflation, so I keep the money in safe financial vehicles that build that money at maybe "8-12%" per annum, to beat inflation. That's investment!

dalaman:
Not true.

"Global refining margins — the gross profit for processing one barrel of crude — typically hover between $2 and $5. Sometimes they go negative. Sophisticated refineries, with greater flexibility, are able to process lower-quality crudes, or produce more high-valued products, can do better."

The gross profit NOT the net profit is 2-5 dollars per barrel. The net profit will be less than a dollar.
The net profit is the real profit not the gross profit

don't also forget that Dangote is operating in Nigeria: a third world country with low wages and a friend of the government. The crude oil he is going to be refining is here in Nigeria. I believe the indices are in his favor and he stands a chance to make a killing in profit.
However I do not rule out his trying to cash out via the stock exchange market but this will be in contrast with his normal business model because Dangote has always tried to own it all.

lastmessenger:
don't also forget that Dangote is operating in Nigeria: a third world country with low wages and a friend of the government. The crude oil he is going to be refining is here in Nigeria. I believe the indices are in his favor and he stands a chance to make a killing in profit.
However I do not rule out his trying to cash out via the stock exchange market but this will be in contrast with his normal business model because Dangote has always tried to own it all.

All his other companies are publicly traded. His cement company is publicly traded. The Dangote group as a whole is publicly traded. Publicly trading doesn't mean he loses control. As long as he is the highest share holder he remains in charge. Oil refining is no longer a good business all over the world. It will not be an exception in Nigeria.

You will see all these guys abroad living the life after putting people who trusted their scheme into depression.

Iam even beginning to doubt the idea of karma. Dudes like this should spend their lives in pains and agony from one affliction to another. They are not suppose to enjoy that wealth at all.

EcoBrick:
https://thenationonlineng.net/mother-of-all-scams-how-farmforte-owners-duped-investors-of-billions-of-naira-relocated-abroad-to-live-large/
To be continued below...

Another agribusiness ponzi scheme gone wrong. All Diasporans and folks back in Nigeria must STAY far away from any of these crazy agric investment schemes from here on out.

The Interpol has to go after these two dudes and bring them to justice and where possible pay some refund to the investors. They two dishonest guys definitely are not going to be based in Nigeria so the Interpol must be involved.

sukkot:
they have an outlet on admiralty way where they sell some of their agricultural products but it's also a supermarket

Oh...

sukkot:
But truly I don't think these guys intention was to scam. I think they just ran out of money. I have been to their shop on admiralty way Lekki and it is beautifully situated facing the water. The product is good quality and they employ a lot of workers.

Upstairs is a restaurant and downstairs a juice and muffins bar and middle floor is the supermarket. Then one day a few months ago I went in and the shelves were empty and it looked like they were packing out and running. Even the frontline workers looked confused and didn't know what was happening. I bet they do now. I asked the guy in the bread and wine section if they were closing down and even he looked befuddled and confused and didn't know what was happening

Hello Sukkot,

Nice perspectives from you there.

I saw the picture on page 1 of the two dudes who are the co-owners of the failed agribusiness scheme standing next to a standard greenhouse, so they must have initially invested with good intentions with their Edo State-based farms like you earlier stated. High overhead costs and financial recklessness obviously nailed them.

But the dishonest attitude of leaving their many investors in a limbo since December 2021 without paying the initial investments and interest to the investors is what riles me here.

Folks in the Diaspora and back in Nigeria have been targets of many of these failed agribusiness schemes as seen on YouTube. It is important for everyone to stay away from these agribusiness schemes and invest in your own live farms through the leasing of land in areas such as Epe, Ikorodu, Badagry, and set up greenhouses for urban tomato, pepper, veggies, and strawberry farming, etc,

The Interpol must be used to bring those guys back to justice.

XAUBulls:
Hello Sukkot,

Nice perspectives from you there.

I saw the picture on page 1 of the two dudes who are the co-owners of the failed agribusiness scheme standing next to a standard greenhouse, so they must have initially invested with good intentions with their Edo State-based farms like you earlier stated. High overhead costs and financial recklessness obviously nailed them.

But the dishonest attitude of leaving their many investors in a limbo since December 2021 without paying the initial investments and interest to the investors is what riles me here.

Folks in the Diaspora and back in Nigeria have been targets of many of these failed agribusiness schemes as seen on YouTube. It is important for everyone to stay away from these agribusiness schemes and invest in your own live farms through the leasing of land in areas such as Epe, Ikorodu, Badagry, and set up greenhouses for urban tomato, pepper, veggies, and strawberry farming, etc,

The Interpol must be used to bring those guys back to justice.

yeah truthfully you would not be looking to scam and appear on national TV with the edo state governor for the whole country to see your face. A person with intentions to scam would not do that. It's obviously two guys who got overwhelmed by the volume of what they indulged in. It got out of hand . But I blame the greedy investors. Who pays interest of 40 percent ? It's not sustainable. You lost your money due to greed, suck it up buttercup and move on with your life. Hopefully you learnt a valuable lesson that no free money in China lmaooooo. Top of the morning to you brother

sukkot:
yeah truthfully you would not be looking to scam and appear on national TV with the edo state governor for the whole country to see your face. A person with intentions to scam would not do that. It's obviously two guys who got overwhelmed by the volume of what they indulged in. It got out of hand . But I blame the greedy investors. Who pays interest of 40 percent ? It's not sustainable. You lost your money due to greed, suck it up buttercup and move on with your life. Hopefully you learnt a valuable lesson that no free money in China lmaooooo. Top of the morning to you brother

Indeed... Although investors got paid their interest at the very beginning, 40 percent ROI is high. Due diligence is key.

maasoap:
It was a ponzi scheme, CEOs never lose. Know that and know peace. They always wait for the investors to join enmass and with huge amount of money after gain their trust over a period of time.
May be you guys know better than the people who worked with them

Years back as a student in the university of Ibadan I was running a poultry farm project simultenously with my academics. This was 2006/2007.
Most of the broiler projects I ran at those times were partly financed by teaching and non teaching staffs of the university who were convinced I could be trusted. My Proposed ROI was 20%-25%, in 3months. And trust me, it was Fair for me, although a bit tough.
That is to say for every 20k I recieved I paid back 25k in 3months.

This actually worked out fine for several cycles of production, until one very unfortunate cycle that saw me losing several of the birds to disease conditions despite biosecurity measures and all the right measures taken.

Now you see where the problem is?

I lost my capital plus the capital that was borrowed. And remember I still have to pay in back plus interest after 3months.
I had to liquidate some assets that are not related to the project in order to pay up my investors. Which was a quite painful experience.

This is just a simple example of what may have gone wrong in these kind of investments.

I know you will talk about insurance and all, but how much do u think insurance company charge to insure livestock farms ? How easy do you think it really is in servicing the insurance, make profits and still be able to pay the ROI promised at the end of the day? Or how easy is it to claim funds back from the insurance company at the right time before investors start breathing down your neck calling you scammer?

I am not denying the fact that some of these companies where scams from the very start. But don't go on to conclude that every last one of them were Ponzis.

Every business needs funding, and crowd funding was a very nice opportunity at that time.