Seye Onigbinde, who formerly worked as a banker, used his acquired skill to fraudulently loot over a sum of N500m from 354 desperate Nigerians, under the pretense of investing in foreign exchange deals, Forex trading, crptocurrency.
According to PUNCH Metro in its publication on Friday, Onigbinde convinced his victims to invest in his foreign exchange business, “after successfully helping the first set of investors to make returns on their investments.”
He disguised his place of work to be at No. 13 Hughes Street, Alagomeji, Yaba, Lagos while in fact he operated from his residence at No. 7 Eyiowuawi Street, in the Pedro area of Shomolu, Lagos
He promised his investors huge returns on their investments which enticed them to put in huge amount of money, but when the investment crashed, he tried to escape without returning their capital which worth over N500m.
After several petitions from Onigbinde’s victims, he was tracked through his wifes phone number and arrested by detectives led by the Area Commander, Area ‘F’, ACP Akinbayo Olasoji.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Bala Elkana, said
“The command is investigating an alleged case of fraud, cheating, money laundering, obtaining of N574,251,261,01 by false pretences through a Ponzi scheme by Tosin Onigbinde and three others, Adeyanju Tijani, Olumuyiwa Adebayo and Adewemimo Onigbinde.
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“Investigation so far has revealed that Tosin Onigbinde collected a total sum of N574,251,261,01, from 354 individuals, from which he claimed to have paid principal and interest to the tune of N482,311.350,89, leaving an outstanding sum of N233,454,755,76.
“He collected this money from these individuals with a promise of extraordinary gains to those willing to invest in the scheme/investment, which he claimed was built on lucrative trading in forex trading, Bitcoin and shares purchase from four international brokers.
“This get-rich-quick scheme attracted gullible and greedy investors, who received the expected high returns, as he simply paid these investors who received the expected high returns, as Seye Onigbinde paid them from later investors. The more investors his scheme attracted, he created a business and used agents to find more and more investors.
“Investigation is ongoing and the Area ‘F’ of the command arraigned him in court and got a remand order for 21 days to enable other members of the public, whose names featured in the scheme, to approach the Human Rights Unit of the Area ‘F’ Command before final arraignment at the Lagos State High Court after the DPP advice.”