As the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the capital market apex regulator moves to further check the activities of Ponzi schemes in Nigeria, there are indications that more investors still fall victim to these organisations whose mission is just but fraudulent.
A recent case is that of Standard Assurance Capital and Asset Management, a Lekki based company that BusinessDay learnt has defrauded many investors of their investments running into millions of naira.
Narrating his ordeal to BusinessDay, a presumed victim of this Ponzi scheme said: “I started making monthly deposits to this company in 2010 February. I started with N20, 000 and I received about N265, 000 in February 2011. Then I did N30, 000 between 2011 and 2012 and I got about N390, 000. So I upped the scale in 2012 and put N50, 000 of my hard earned money every month. Much of the work I do by myself and so the N50, 000 is very hard earned. I was looking forward to at least N600, 000, which is equal to the investment (supposing we have a worst case scenario, in which there are no interest)”.
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According to him, “When it was time for me to make the February payment, which would have been on the 11th month (this year had shifted by a month), the agent I was relating with –Miss Vera Esanbor, asked me not to pay, because there were issues in the company. Later she told me that there had been massive fraud and the management had sacked loads of people who had given out dodgy loans that crippled the operations.
“She then said I should send a text to a number to demand the refund of the much I had deposited. I did, but no answer came. I waited two months until April 2013. I then went over to the company. One Mr Asaju came out and explained that the company was struggling to recover monies and that I would be contacted in roughly 10 days after my visit. It turned out to be a lie. He didn’t contact me. I visited again in early May. He wasn’t there. The man I met did not categorically say he was working there, but he indicated that if I went to the media it would achieve nothing because they were in the media already. That is the story so far,” the victim narrated.
