Ayo Turton, a US-based attorney has accused a retired Nigerian police officer of swindling investors, including himself through a multi-billion-naira fraud, and demanded accountability and justice.
Turton accused Mr Aderemi Adeoye, a former Commissioner of Police in Anambra State of diverting funds under Alpha Trust Investment Club (ATIC), described as a supposed cooperative society.
In a statement, Turton narrated that Adeoye showed up on Facebook “around late 2017 or early 2018 thereabouts projecting himself as a do-good police officer who stands for fairness and fights for the little guys, we let down our guards and welcomed him wholeheartedly into our lives”.
He said Adeoye inserted himself into every popular conversation on social media, did several updates, and advertised himself and his exploits in arresting bad guys and his tour of duty to Ethiopia.
He said, “All unsuspecting followers applauded him. Unfortunately, he was only grandstanding, and we did not realize that he was only preparing the grounds for executing his own hidden agenda. By the time we did, it was already too late.
“Riding on the waves of his popularity, Mr. Aderemi Olufemi Adeoye, the recently retired commissioner of police in Anambra state, proposed that we open a Co-Operative Society to invest in real estate and the stock market. This was a welcome idea, especially for many of us in the diaspora who have been looking for dependable people back home to do business with.
“We believed that with a man of the rank of Commissioner of Police maintaining an oversight and ensuring compliance in such a venture, it would be difficult for fraudsters to elope with our money. How wrong we were! We were worried about the dogs because of the sign that says “beware of dogs” when we should have actually been more worried about the deadlier owner of the dogs.
“He gathered some of his friends on Facebook sometime around mid – or late 2018 and started what he called Alpha Trust Investment Club (ATIC), a supposed co-operative society. I joined a few months later in 2019. Part of the early signs of dysfunctionality in the operation of the so-called Co-operative Club was a lack of transparency and structure.
“I would like to make it abundantly clear that it was not our intention to give money to Mr. Adeoye to manage, knowing it was against the civil service rules for him to do so. Our understanding was that Mr. Adeoye and members registered a co-operative society where people with knowledge of financial and investment matters would constitute an investment committee to manage the portfolio.
“We also believed that a serving senior police officer with all his claims to integrity would know not to get involved with the running of a commercial venture. Our intention was to have him in an advisory role and to ensure legal compliance.
“The more we looked, the more we discovered that Mr. Adeoye had in fact appropriated everything to himself and was running the project like a one-man show. Whoever asked him any questions that he did not like was quickly labeled as a “rebel” “renegade” “toxic” etc. Any further questioning would earn the person a Facebook blocking from the platform, which he calls “expulsion.” He routinely handed out expulsion as the accuser, the prosecutor, and the judge.
“Adeoye is the only one who was in the business of collecting money from depositors, and you will have to produce your own statement of account as proof that you had money there. The outfit has zero institutional records. If you couldn’t produce a receipt of deposit, to him then you had no money in that project. It is like putting your money into a slot machine (kalokalo). Slot machines do not issue receipts.
“Mr. Kalokalo was always online for 24 hours to respond to posts that he did not like by harassing and bullying the person but always very “busy” when the issues centered around accountability.”
According to Turton, several members started to ask questions about why a website had not been set up since most of the activities were carried out online.
He said, “People were asking questions about how a multi-billion Naira investment depended solely on Facebook pages that could be shut down at any time by the owners for whatever reason. His response was always that we were building it. Six years later, we were still building a website. Even a high school graduate knows that it takes only between 24 to 48 hours to set up a functional website.
“We thought that with a website, it would be easy to allocate portals to members where they can verify the status of their investments rather than waiting for Mr. Adeoye to come to the Facebook page to announce whatever suited his fancy for each day, and we must accept it as the gospel truth. If you complain, then you were quickly targeted and labeled any variety of names with his “caustic” fingers.
“Nothing moved forward when Mr. Adeoye was not available to answer questions concerning people’s investment. Therefore, people requested that we open a physical office and that a multi-billion Naira investment was big enough to provide job opportunities for at least two or three mid-level staff to take care of clerical matters, like administrative and accounting clerks for the company.
“He ignored the demands and created excuses because he had too much to hide. He claimed that we were making money and paying “dividends” every year but couldn’t afford to pay the salaries of two essential staff? It did not make sense to many of us. This became one of the earliest red flags.”
Turton explained that the original concept for the co-operative as marketed to them was to register a co-operative society that would apply to the government for allocation of land to build their estate and further help the government in providing more housing opportunities to the people while they would also walk away with decent incomes yearly.
He said that way, interested members could also buy several plots of land together in a particular project to secure a bargain.
“But what we got was a complete deviation from the promises and what we agreed on,” he said.
“Towards the objective, we were told that a co-operative club known as Alpha Trust Investment Club (ATIC) had been registered. So, when we were presented with Guaranty Trust Bank account nomenclature starting with ATIC by Mr. Adeoye, to pay money into, with the full name of ATIC Venture and Business Services, we did not have any reason to suspect any foul play.
“As it would turn out after investigation, we discovered that Mr. Adeoye and his two co-conspirators did not register any co-operative society with the Corporate Affairs Commission and under the Nigerian Co-operative Societies Act. What Mr. Adeoye registered was a personal business organization with three of them, himself, one Babatunde Olanrewaju, and one David Egbele as the Proprietors.
“Mr. Adeoye cleverly used the acronym of the supposed co-operative, ATIC, to register a private partnership with two others to evade suspicion and used the bank account of the private company to obtain several billions of Naira from unsuspecting members. This is a classic example of “Obtaining By False Pretense” under Section 419 of the Nigerian Criminal Code.
“This information is in the database of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) available online for anyone to verify. In a TV interview, Mr. Adeoye claimed that the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) did not accept the name Alpha Trust Investment Company/Club for registration. He then registered ATIC Venture and Business Services. That is so kindergarten. Who changes a cooperative outfit to a personal business just because the name was not available? What about using other acceptable names?”