WONDER FOOLS!

Prince Adebambo

Thousands of depositors have lost their funds in one of the wonder banks, Dividend Multitrade International (DMI), with headquarters in Ogbomoso, Oyo State.

In desperation to recover their money from the troubled bank, many of the investors have in the last couple of weeks besieged the Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos office of the Economic and Finacial Crimes Commission with petitions, urging the anti-graft agency to help them.

Although the EFCC has arrested the Managing Director of the bank, Prince Adebambo Lindon, the depositors of sums said to have exceeded N10million at the last count, are yet a long way from recovery their monies.

According to EFCC operatives, the dividends the 31-year-old man promised the depositors on their investments were too huge to be true.

It was learnt that when the going was good, Lindon promised his depositors 350 per cent profit within three weeks on whatever amount they placed in the bank.

The EFCC operatives said although they were yet to ascertain the financial condition of DMI because its branches are spread over nine cities including Ibadan, Oshogbo, Oyo and Lagos, they doubted the ability of the bank to fulfill its obligations to customers.

One operative said, “What he (Lindon) promised the customers is fantastic. For instance, a depositor who invests N7, 000 in the DMI investment offer will get N60, 000 within 10 weeks.”

It was gathered that the mouth-watering offer prompted thousands of people to lodge various sums of money in different branches of the bank.

Lindon’s outfit is also said to be operating as a commission agent to another Ibadan-based company called Success Point Inter-Continental.

Trouble began for the wonder bank when the depositors waited for months without any return on their investments or information from the company. Some of them alleged that effort to locate Lindon proved abortive.

“The company is a ruse because many of the depositors are already licking their wounds after waiting endlessly for their deposits to yield dividends,” an EFCC official said.

The commission said its investigations revealed that Lindon is a secondary school leaver who had not bothered to futher his education. “How he managed to fool all those people is beyond my imagination,” said an operative.

In his statement to the EFCC, Lindon said that his company had not been able to pay its investors because it was not yet the tenth week he promised them. He said since he started collecting deposits from clients in May 2007, the tenth operational week would be due in October.

He conceded that although his company acts as a franchise agent to Success Point, his customers were never told that their deposits were going into the parent company’s account. According to him, he only told them that he was trading with their money.

Lindon said he paid all funds he got from investors into a First Bank account managed by Success Point Intercontinental Investment.

He claimed that the total sum he had collected from various investors was N10 million.

He said his company was not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission or the Central Bank of Nigeria because it was just an agent to Success Point Intercontinental Investment.

Spokesman of the EFCC, Mr Osita Nwajah, warned members of the public to beware of dubious investment companies. He said the commission was still trying to ascertain the number of investors and how much money was trapped in the company. “Investigations are on-going to ascertain the truth of Lindon’s claims,” he added.