Nigerian and New Jersey-based self-acclaimed Agribusiness and telecoms firm, Tingo Group has been caught in alleged pack of numerous fraudulent claims in an investigation conducted by New York-based Hinderburg Research.
The report from the investigation found that not only did the CEO, Dozy Mmobuosi, who almost bought English Premier League Club, Sheffield FC, lie about his academic qualifications, but he also told numerous lies about his operations in Nigeria and Ghana, company finances, projects and many more.
Claims about Ghana operations
For instance, in Ghana, where the company has a virtually empty office off Lagos Avenue at East Legon, it claimed that beginning from February 2023 they were going to have between 2-4 million mobile subscribers, which will constitute about 9 to 18% market share. But investigations at the National Communications Authority (NCA) indicated Tingo does not even have a mobile network operator license in Ghana.
The investigators said they tried to contact Tingo’s Ghana support in late May 2023 to buy a phone but the email bounced back and no one picked up the phone despite numerous attempts.
“We visited Tingo’s Ghana office location in late May 2023. We saw two cars in the parking lot and no customers. When we tried to enrol in a plan and buy a phone we were told the location wasn’t operational yet,” the report said.
Meanwhile, Tingo is also said to have claimed it launched its seed sale marketplace called NWASSA in Ghana, but, like the Nigeria website, the Ghana website also doesn’t work and just says “Updating…” without ever going anywhere.
The company made even wilder claims about operations in Nigeria.
For instance, it allegedly claimed to have a deal Airtel in Nigeria to roll out its mobile services to benefit some 12 million customers, including 9.3 million farmers belonging to two farmer cooperative groups. But the report said not only did Airtel deny any relationship with Tingo, but the two farmer groups also described the company as scam, saying that their respective membership is about 100 each and they don’t have any business with Tingo.
Indeed, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) also denied having issued any license to Tingo Group, whereas at Tingo’s Nigerian office, a notice from the tax collector was found indicating that the company has defaulted on its tax obligations.
The link below have all the details of Tingo’s alleged false claims regarding its operations in Nigeria and Ghana, it’s financial position, customer base, staff strength, projects, its non-existent airline, non-existent processing factory, photoshopped logos on stolen pictures from other websites and the fake academic qualifications of the CEO.
Tingo Group: Fake Farmers, Phones, and Financials—The Nigerian Empire That Isn’t
Techfocus24 has since written to Tingo Group via their official email address seeking for their response to the issues raised, but the company is yet to respond.
We will keep you posted with any response from the company.
