More than 2,000 Nigerian investors in Kenya have petitioned the court regarding a fraud involving Fintech company Flutterwave. The petitioners want the court to unfreeze the frozen Eleven Million Eight Hundred Thousand Dollars ( $11.8 Million) that it had ordered frozen.
The amount is equivalent to One billion, four hundred and forty million Kenyan shillings ( KSH 1.44 Billion). These Nigerians claimed a sports betting platform known as 86 Football Technology used Flutterwave to process payments and swindled them.
It was also known as 86FB, 86Z and 86W, and the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria duly registered the merchants.
The investors, he said, made deposits in the investment scheme with a promise of better returns from the betting business, which never came to pass. They reckon all was well for about six months when the payments stopped.
The investors claimed that the monies are locked in separate accounts, including Safaricom, Guaranteed Trust Bank, and two other banks, which were swindled off in a financial transaction involving Flutterwave, an Africa-focused payment platform.
Read also: Kenya Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) Drops Money Laundering Charges Against Nigerian Companies
What Really Happened?
In July 2022, the Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) was granted a court order, freezing Ksh6.2 billion ($52.5 million) spread across 62 bank accounts.
It also discovered Ksh5.17 billion ($43.8 million) in 29 accounts at Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), Equity Bank, and Ecobank in Kenyan shillings, US dollars, euros, and pounds.
According to report, as a result of the alleged event, the two thousand, four hundred and sixty-eight (2,468) petitioners want the frozen cash of $11.8 Million split from the frozen $54.8 Million back in July 2022.
The court believes that the billions are the proceeds of theft, card fraud, and money laundering wired as payments for goods and services.
With this new case, the Nigerian investors are demanding that the Ksh6.6 billion ($12,040,208) frozen in July be separated.
Morris Ebitimi Joseph, one of the investors, said he and other alleged victims had lodged another case in Nigeria, seeking to recover their money. They have opposed the bid to forfeit the money to the Kenya government, saying part of it belongs to them.
“I believe that the issuance of an order compelling Guaranty Trust Bank, Equity Bank and Ecobank to deposit the sums excluded in the bank account of our advocates, justice shall be served to the 2,468 interested parties who were swindled of their hard-earned money through the scheme,” Morris said.
Mr Ebitimi says he has done the research and discovered that it was a dubious operation and wants to join the case and assist the court in resolving the matter.
However, according to Adebayo Abiodemi, another investor, “I have sufficient reason to believe that 86 Football Technology Limited was a fraudulent scheme looking to defraud unsuspecting investors and traders.”
Meanwhile, the evidence presented in court disclosed that the funds were deposited via several platforms, including Marakwe and Sons Ltd, Marasoft Digital Technologies Ltd (also known as Marasoftpay), Hadsol Global Investment Service Ltd, and Monotechnologies Nig. Ltd, and Wildcat Global.
Read also: Flutterwave Denies Money Laundering Allegations
Online Sports Betting In Kenya
Sports betting and gambling are legal in Kenya and have been since the year 1966 when the government introduced the Betting Lotteries and Gaming Act. This means that online betting and playing online casino games are also legal in Kenya.
The law of 1966 established the first clear rules and regulations about gambling in Kenya. It required gambling operators to carry a license and pay the necessary taxes in order to offer betting games to customers.
This means that all betting sites and online casinos operating in Kenya must apply for a license and pay the annual fees and taxes to the government. The Kenyan government collects around 3 million dollars per year in gambling revenue. This may sound like a lot of money, but it’s actually very little compared to European countries like the UK.
Betting sites operating in Kenya are obligated to show their gambling license at the bottom of the webpage. So you can always go and check if any betting site is legally licensed.
If you want to join a betting site that’s licensed by the Kenyan government, then we highly encourage you to do so. This will give you the protection of the Kenyan government in the very unlikely case that you should experience trouble with the bookmaker, such as failure to pay out the money you are entitled to, etc.
In addition, if you use a bookmaker that’s licensed in Kenya, you support the Kenyan government because this bookmaker is obligated to pay taxes on their revenue to the government.