As of August 2021 when news broke they were on the run for an alleged multi-million dollar fraud, Glory Osei and Muyiwa Folorunsho have founded not less than four startups under their company Divergent Enterprise.
In the past year, the Nigerian couple has come across as celebrated serial entrepreneurs attracting multiple invitations to speak and mentor young people on running a successful business.
Divergent Enterprise operates brands such as True Rebel Fashion, Landlagos, PorkMoney, Hyberfactory, Paymonthlycars, Medic Surplus, Femfunds, and Porkoyum, among other businesses many of which were allegedly short-lived or used as fronts for Ponzi schemes. The website of Divergent Enterprise now shows a spam message as of the time of writing this article.
Glory Osei and Muyiwa Folorunsho are said to have obtained Dominican passports to escape a manhunt by the Interpol desk of the Nigerian police to arrest and detain them for prosecution.
The arrest warrant came on a petition from a former customer of the company, Chijioke Ukaegbu, and other victims. One of the crimes allegedly committed by the couple includes defrauding investors N1 billion.
Read also: PorkMoney founders flee from Interpol over multi-million dollar fraud
The Gazette reports that warrants of arrest separately issued for them by the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court said they are wanted for obtaining money under false pretense and stealing.
“If seen, arrest and hand over to the nearest police station or to the office of the commissioner of police Interpol Section Force Criminal Investigation Department Annex Alagbon Ikoyi Close, Lagos,” the documents further said.
According to multiple sources in the tech ecosystem, the couples started well. Where did it all start to go south?
Glory Osei
Police report shows Glory was born Gloria Osadebame Igberaseme in 1992 (29 years ago). She claimed to have begun displaying her entrepreneurial skills at the age of 19 exporting cash crops.
She is alumna of Lead University, where she graduated with a degree in the Ibadan; Oyo State based Nigerian institution in Biochemistry.
While the agricultural sector was where she made most of her wealth, it was largely given prominence by her very active presence on social media.
She started getting a lot of attention with her @NigerianAbroad handle on Instagram while based in Dubai, UAE. The handle housed flashy pictures showing her in different countries of the world. A search of the handle on Instagram, redirects you to @GloryOsei which has also stopped functioning.
Osei’s love for blogging would lead to the creation of blogging sites such as Shaapeyou.com.ng and wenoir.com from where she blogged about travelling and fashion. A recent search shows the two sites are no longer functioning.
She also went on to create a consulting business through the website oseiconsult.com. The site is currently not functional as of time of writing this article. Her LinkedIn profile appears to have also been wiped clean.
Muyiwa Folorunsho
Like his wife Glory, Muyiwa Folorunsho appears to have also wiped clean his LinkedIn profile as well as every social media footprint including Twitter and all Facebook platforms.
However, a public report corroborated by the police report gives 1987 as the birth year of Muyiwa Folorunsho. Much of his notoriety revolves around building the companies under Divergent Enterprise alongside his wife Glory Osei. Interestingly, their marriage was also kept a secret with Osei projecting herself as a “single” woman.
Folorunsho claims he started business without capital despite having ideas. He then started small before growing the businesses. For example, the idea for PorkMoney came years before it was established in 2018.
Folorunsho said he had visited a farm in Ogun State where the idea was kindled and eventually morphed into PorkMoney.
Celebrity-Big Brother presenter Ebuka Obi-Uchendu who was signed on as Ambassador of PorMoney in 2018, said he was aware that everyone got back the money they invested in the projects he worked on.
But former employees of PorkMoney alleged that the business was a Ponzi scheme. The website of the company is currently deactivated.
In an Instagram post where he posted pictures of himself living the good life, Folorunsho gave an indication of why he prefers the shadows while explaining his love for black clothes.
“I only like black. But why is that? Is it because I am afraid to stand out? Is it because people would start to notice me? Is this why I like black? Is this why I always sat at the back of the class? Do I really only like black? Or do I hate the idea of making a splash? I have been seeing this quote by Winston Churchill recently and it hit me hard. It goes thus, “In your 20’s and 30’s, you worry about what other people think. In your 40’s and 50’s you stop worrying about what other people think. Finally in your 60’s and 70’s, you realize they were never thinking about you in the first place!” In other words no one cares bro/sis, so do YOU,” he wrote.
In October 2019, Glory Osei and her husband Muyiwa Folorunso became the top trending personalities as they were accused on social media by former employees for alleged high-handedness, allegations of scam business ventures and poor treatment of former staff as well as maintenance of a toxic work environment.
It started when Osei posted a vacancy advert inviting people to come work for one of the companies under Divergent Enterprise. A former employee who responded first to the vacancy alleged that Glory and her husband treated employees like slaves and were using their clients to run a Ponzi scheme. Several other employees later corroborated the allegations which forced Osei to deactivate her Twitter handle temporarily.
In 2020, a Nigerian Twitter user announced a bounty of N100,000 on Glory Osei and Muyiwa Folorunsho to anyone with information on how they can be reached.
Osei was later to respond to the allegations in a 186-tweet long thread. In the thread she denied never having mistreated her employees and admitted there were mistakes made with some of the businesses, like LandLagos. LandLagos currently does not have a traceable website.
“With LandLagos, we made some blunders. Firstly, we got property that didn’t have all its documents but had a promise,” she wrote. “At the time we got it we were told it had some of the necessary documents with the rest being things we could work out with the right sum.”
She also acknowledged the marriage to Folorunsho but claimed she has never liked the idea of marriage but he was a good excuse to leave her parents. She also disclosed that Folorunsho does not also like the idea of marriage which was the attraction for them.
“Our marriage was a good excuse to continue with the lives we always dreamed of,” she wrote.
But there have also been reports that the couple’s mistreatment of employees go as far back as 2014 when they founded True Rebel Fashion.
A Nairaland contributor had alleged that the company was defrauding clients by selling fake jewelry to them. The company was also accused of using manipulation to disengage its employees. Following backlash from the public, True Rebel Fashion was blacklisted.
The Interpol session of the Nigerian police is currently alleging that the couple defrauded some victims of money to the tune of N1 billion.
