Port Harcourt is known to bust with a Ponzi scheme from time to time, and the lesson is hardly learnt. From the days of Umana Umana bank where lives were ruined when important persons banked and crashed with them, to the MBA Forest of recent, it has been same tale.
Port Harcourt is an oil zone and so a mega bucks zone. People earn big and lose big because they invest big; in good and bad.
So, when a scheme came called MBA Forex emerged, big investors poured in billions of naira, and when it crashed, souls went aflame and ablaze. Many had hoped and prayed that government agencies could intervene and save what is left of their souls. It was late in coming because the suspects usually plan ahead.
Now, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has in Port Harcourt arraigned a director for alleged N13.8bn fraud.
The EFCC arraigned the director of Glossalalia Nigeria Ltd and Pelenged Nigeria Ltd, Precious Williams before Justice S. I . Mark of the Federal High Court, sitting in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
Williams is being prosecuted on a 14-count charge, bordering on conspiracy, advance fee fraud, obtaining money under false pretence and money laundering to the tune of N13.8 billion.
Read also: Ponzi scheme victims lament loss, seek SEC’s urgent action
One of the charges reads: “That you, Precious Williams of Glossolalia Nigeria Limited; Pelegend Nigeria Limited, Phenom 413 Events Limited (company representative at large) and Doxasterz Oil and Gas Limited, sometime between the 24th day of August, 2019 and 15th day of February, 2020, at Port Harcourt, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, directly took possession of the sum of Ten Billion Naira (N10bn) only from Maxwell Chizi Odum (still at large) and MBA Trading and Capital Investment Limited (at large) through your Sterling Bank PLC Account No. 0064260799, when you reasonably ought to have known that the said funds formed part of the proceeds of the unlawful activities, of Maxwell Chizi Odum (still at large) and MBA Trading and Capital Investment Limited (at large) of obtaining money under false pretence from one Christian I. Agadag Agadaga and over three thousand (3000) other unsuspecting members of the Nigerian public, under the pretext that it was for investment purposes that will yield for them 10% to 15% interest. There were other charges that ran contrary to Section 15 (2)(b) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended) and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act.”
She pleaded “not guilty” to all the charges, prompting the prosecution counsel E. K. Bakam to ask for a trial date and to apply for the remand of the defendant in a correctional center, while counsel to the defendant, Tochukwu Maduka, SAN, informed the court of the defendant’s bail application and prayed the court to grant her bail to enable her to prepare for her trial.
In his ruling, the judge held that the defendant be remanded in the Port Harcourt Correctional Center and adjourned the matter till June 17, 2025 for the hearing of the bail application.
The defendant was arrested when petitioners alleged that she received money from over 3000 victims by false pretence and laundering the money for personal use sometime in April 2021.
The petitioners alleged that sometime in 2019 and 2020, the defendant alongside MBA Trading and Capital.
