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?”
‘Ponzi Crypto Deals’
He alleged that Mr. Adeoye took money from trusting members that he claimed would be invested in crypto trading and gave a personal guarantee to pay them 10% monthly ROI “come rain or shine” with a minimum of one million naira (N1 million) deposit each.
Turton said, “He collected money running into hundreds of millions of Naira with this promise. Like a typical Ponzi operator, he paid them for the first month to attract more victims, but he has since stopped paying. Neither the interests promised nor the capital that he took has been paid back as of the time of authoring this article.
“It is going to be three years now that some of our members have put their hard-earned money, some retirement money, and some loans into the slot machine called Remi Adeoye personal venture with no returns. One of our members who took home equity loan and gave it to Adeoye on the promise of 10% monthly ROI may become homeless soon in the cold winters of Europe.”
‘Banana Island Failed Project’
He continued, “Mr. Remi Adeoye showed up sometime in 2021 and told people that one Siji Ogundele who is also known as Sujimoto, a property developer in Lagos has a project in Banana Island and convinced some members into putting their monies into the off-plan project, with a promise that their investment would give a return of 400% in two years when the building would be completed.
“He collected over One Billion Naira (N1B) from members for this project. No one saw the evidence of payment to the Sujimoto guy nor the contract that he signed despite repeated demands. It has been three years, and not even a foundation existed at the site. Some of us who are lawyers asked to review the contract to see if there were any provisions in it that could offer the depositors an opportunity to opt out and make claims. It was like asking Mr. Adeoye to produce the birth certificate of Father Abraham in the Bible.
“Even though the developer was in breach, if there was ever a fair contract, Mr. Adeoye would turn around and threaten members that they would lose 30% of their deposits if they ever requested a refund. It is strange that he chooses to defend the developer at breach against his innocent victims.
“He once promised these investors that the 30% penalty would not be applicable to them in case of premature withdrawal. It is, therefore, appalling that he turned around to say that the investors would pay 30% penalty, even where the developer was clearly the one in breach. Investors are still demanding to see the terms of the contract and evidence of payments made to the developer from him to no avail.
Alleged Shady Property Deals
“Mr. Remi Adeoye has collected money in several billions of Naira from us with a promise that he was buying lands on our behalf in various cities in Nigeria. The problem here is that no one has ever seen the proof of payments made to the developers, how much was paid, title documents obtained on our behalf for the six years the slot machine has been collecting our money.
“He has not allocated a single plot of land to any of the subscribers. Our investigation shows that many of the landed properties do not even exist. This is the same landed property he is using to do the valuation of his phantom investment. Even if the lands existed, they belonged to the individual buyers, not the co-operative (a co-operative that does not exist anyway).
“Our investigation shows that some of the lands were not paid for by the people who purportedly sold them to Mr. Adeoye. To us, it is kind of strange that some people would attempt to dupe a man who is not just a Police Commissioner in rank, but also a state Commissioner of Police in a state as sophisticated as Anambra and no arrests have been made, especially a Police Officer who gained our confidence through claims of helping folks to arrest those who defrauded them.
‘Why is the physician not healing himself? Rather than hearing of arrests, he creates excuses for them. But he has been quick to threaten we, his victims, with arrest for demanding accountability.”
Allegation Of Fake Board Of Trustees And Executive Management Team
Turton alleged that Mr. Adeoye alluded to the existence of a Board of Trustees (BOT) in the management of the affairs of the non-existent cooperative in a TV interview.
The lawyer added that it was all a lie.
He said, “As a matter of fact, our realization of this fact was the last straw that broke the camel’s back and what led to the current crisis.
“The snake oil salesman was fond of coming to Facebook to make claims that BOT had approved this, and BOT had approved that. One day I was on the phone with a supposed member of the BOT who does not live in Nigeria and asked him if he knew that he could be held responsible for the shady activities of the fake co-operative. That was when he told me he had resigned.
“He had asked Mr. Adeoye, whether another BOT existed where all the decisions that were announced by him were being taken. In his usual compulsive anger, he lashed out at him and told him that he handpicked the BOT members and they existed at his leisure in advisory capacity, and that he was solely responsible for members’ deposits.
“In the chat which I have available for whoever may want to request to see it, he had already changed the name of the group from BOT to ABOT, Advisory Board of Trustees. As a lawyer, I immediately saw something fundamentally wrong with this and must not continue.
“To seek clarifications, I did a post on the group business lounge on Facebook asking Mr. Adeoye if the information was indeed true and I explained why such a body could not be advisory. It was an oxymoron. BOT is the highest decision-making body and therefore could not be advisory. A Board of Trustees is supposed to be the body in whose hands the organization is entrusted. How can they be advisors in an organization they superintend?
“In his usual bullying methods rather than answering the question, he deleted the post, called me names and before you could say BOT, he blocked me from the page saying I was summarily “expelled” for “gross misconduct and criminal behavior.”
“This angered many members of the group, and some of them jointly wrote him a letter to reinstate all the folks he had “expelled” with impunity and provide an audited account of the group. Before we knew what was happening, he claimed he could no longer work with them and “expelled” them as well. Funny, right? It got worse. Those who “liked” or posted positive reactions to my post and the letter were targeted and asked to leave.
“Rather than undertaking to provide an audited account, he called out for more members who may be willing to exit the group. About 200 members signified their intention to leave within the hour. He promptly removed them, created a new page he called “Exit Lounge” he has since locked them up there and has been talking down on them without an opportunity for them to respond for the past three months. He blocked their right of response. While he is using their money to do press jamboree and bribing the members left on the forum with a dinner at the Transcorp Hilton hotel in Abuja.”
According to Turton, the co-operative club does not exist.
He said, “Mr Adeoye issued “shares” to his victims in the name of a supposed co-operative club known as Alpha Trust Investment Club (ATIC). As I said earlier, he proceeded cunningly to use the acronym of that name to register a personal business for himself and two others known as ATIC Venture and Business Services.
“The entity named Alpha Trust Investment Club, upon which the so-called shares were issued, do not exist and are not registered anywhere. Therefore, the so-called shares were not worth the pieces of paper they were written on. Our search of the CAC database revealed an entity with the name Alpha Trust Investment & Partners, which was registered by someone about the same time he registered ATIC Venture and Business Services.
“That company status has since been inactive. If the company was registered by Mr. Adeoye in 2019, why then did he instruct that money be diverted into his personal business account rather than opening a bank account in that name? Then what is the ownership structure of the company? If the company was not registered by him, where did he register Alpha Trust Investment, whose shares he was selling to people?”
Turton also accused Mr. Adeoye of “arbitrarily fixing the share prices of the phantom co-operative based on his whims and caprices”.
He accused him of creating his own private stock exchange and trading the “shares” as he pleased.
“How can a company that has never had its financial statement done in six years know what to pay in dividends? How can a company that has not audited its account in six years know what value to attach to its shares? How can a company that has neither the register of members with the amount of shares held by each, nor the total value of paid shares of the company determine its worth and the financial strength of the company? Now, who is the criminal?” he asked.
Describing Mr Adeoye’s investment scheme as a sophisticated Ponzi scheme, Turton said he only “paid dividends to existing members as a token to keep them quiet for another year using the money collected from his new victims who are equally enticed with mouth-watering lies”.
He said, “What kind of business or entity is Mr. Adeoye actually operating? We already know that ATIC Venture and Business is owned by three of them as Proprietors.
“We know that Alpha Trust Investment Club that he printed on the piece of paper he called “Share Certificate” was not a registered entity.
“We know that he registered an entity known as ATIC Multipurpose Co-operative Society with the Lagos State Government which he said belongs ONLY to the Loan Committee of his personal company. ATIC Venture and Business Services. Only a few members who contributed about N1 million Naira each to loan out to needy members are members of that committee. About 50 of them at most. If the co-operative actually had 1,400 members, what is the status of the rest of 1,350 victims walking around with the fake share certificates of a nonexistent co-operative? Yet he collects annual dues from unsuspecting members as co-operative dues.
“Since the group is involved in activities that falls within the definition of “Collective Investment Scheme” under the Nigerian Investment and Securities Act of 2007 at sections 152 and 153(1), he is required to register the business with the Security and Exchange Commission. Did he? When?
“If what Mr. Adeoye is running is a Co-operative Society, he is required to register as one, as prescribed by the Nigerian Co-Operative Societies Act of 2004. He did not.
“He registered a “Loan Committee” attached to his private company as a Multi-purpose Co-operative Society with Lagos State. Lagos State requires a minimum of 20 people to register as a co-operative, no maximum. But he claimed that he did not register the whole group as a co-operative with Lagos State because “we are too large to be a co-operative” You heard me right. We have the screenshots to prove everything said here. He has yet to respond to a query issued by the Lagos State Government regarding the activities of the entity since February this year.
‘Fake Addresses’
“The addresses supplied by his co-proprietors while registering ATIC Venture and Business Services are fake addresses. Recently, we needed to serve them letters, but the courier companies returned the letters as undeliverable. Both the one in Port Harcourt and the one in Badagry. It could not have been a coincidence. I personally sent people to Badagry to verify the address of the one in Badagry because the man is an elderly man and is supposed to be a deacon, but the address is untraceable.
“Even when we sent a letter to the address that was used to register the co-operative registered with Lagos State, the courier man was told they were not known there.
“The Nigerian Co-operative Societies Act, Part I section 8 requires every co-operative to have a register of members. Mr. Adeoye’s private company, alias ATIC Co-operative Society, has none or no one has seen it published anywhere, so it is easy for him to manufacture figures from his head as it suits the occasion.”
He noted that several members have been demanding that he provide them with the financial statement of the club and an audited account for the past five years, but he has refused to do so.
He said, “His first excuse, which he wrote on Facebook, was that the co-operative was not set up for audit. Not a few of us got scandalized by such a ridiculous excuse. But we reminded him that an audit was not optional. It is a requirement of the law. But it got worse when he embarrassingly claimed on national TV that we do not have an audit because we operate “zero expenses” business.
“It is elementary that even if an organization did zero business within a year, forget about zero expenses. It was still required to file its financial statement.
“How can he run zero expenses if he is making millions and declaring dividends anyway? Does that mean that his own banks do not charge COT? When he holds the “Rice and Soup Very Plenty” that he calls AGM, does he take the food and the drinks from the vendors for free? Well, he claimed the AGM is financed by members’ co-operative dues.
“So, co-operatives’ dues were floating funds, and they were not regarded as a part of income that must be accounted for in the financial statements? It is appalling that he says all these things gleefully and by exhibiting his ignorance on social media and recently on national TV.
“The whole of Section 36 of the Nigerian Co-operative Societies Act is devoted to audit. Section 1 not only required that an audit must be carried out at the end of every fiscal year (no exception for zero expenses lol) Section 5 went on to criminalize it. When officers fail to do an audit, it is a strict liability offense punishable by a prison term.
“Section 169(2) of the Nigerian Investment and Securities Act that governs the Collective Investment Scheme like Adeoye is doing mandated a yearly audit, not an option. And since what he actually registered is a personal business organization of three proprietors, do they pay their taxes? EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), please take note.”
He accused Mr Adeoye of blackmailing investors, claiming they wanted to take over his “phantom N20 billion business, but all we have demanded from this man was accountability and if he cannot comply with the extant laws relating to the operation of a scheme like this, he should pay us back our money, issue us with allocation of the lands he purportedly bought on our behalf or pay us the current fair value for the lands”.
“We have prepared a spreadsheet of our holdings and sent it to him through a lawyer representing us then, but he has ignored it,” he said.
‘Violation Of Civil Service Rules’
Accusing Mr Adeoye of violating civil service rules, Turton said “by virtue of being a public officer who openly and boastfully engaged in commercial business,” he “violated the said constitutional provision and the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act at Section 6(b)”.
He continued, “Mr. Adeoye violated Section 95 of the Nigerian Police Act that prohibits a police officer while in service from getting directly involved in managing and running any personal business or trade except farming. He not only registered a business while in service as a proprietor, he falsified public records by identifying himself as a businessman in the filing rather than a Police Officer and openly boasted about it.
“He violated Police Regulation 364, which prohibits a serving police officer from getting involved with the management of any commercial undertaken. But he claims that he is investing and not doing business. Who needs to register a business as a proprietor to invest? Who is fooling who?
“Mr. Adeoye once posted on Facebook that he spent so many hours trading for the phantom co-operative that he has had two eye surgeries done. He once said he has been using his salary account to defend the purported N20 billion investment account. Thereby admitting that he has been combining people’s funds with his personal money. His impunity and contempt for the law are incredible.
“By the way, how much is Mr. Adeoye’s salary that he has been using it to defend a multi-billion-naira project? You really cannot make these things up.”
He said, “Finally, Mr. Adeoye found a way to drop the name of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) as he has been doing at every opportunity on that Arise TV interview. This is to create an impression that the IGP sanctioned whatever he was doing. He claims that the IGP got our petition, sent it to him, that he replied, and the IGP was satisfied. Really? Just like that?
“We know the procedure would have been for the IG to minute it to the DIG in charge of the Fraud Unit. We do not believe that the case would be closed without anyone reaching out to us. At the same time, we understand and appreciate why the IG may have slowed down on it because he has the image of his institution to protect. Moreso that he knew the officer concerned would be retiring from the police three months from that time.
“We are asking the IGP and the Police Service Commission not to release his gratuity until this is fully investigated and prosecuted.”
Efforts made by SaharaReporters to reach Mr Adeoye on his mobile line failed as he did not answer calls or reply to messages sent to him.
But when SaharaReporters spoke to him in February regarding similar allegations, while he was still the Anambra police commissioner, he explained that there were 1,400 members in the group and alleged that the 33 members who had written a petition against him were expelled from the group for criminal activities.
He claimed they wanted to discredit the scheme and pull the cooperative down.
He said, “The question you should ask is, in what form is the N20 billion? Who contributed N20 billion? Where did N20 billion come from? Because what does not exist cannot be misappropriated.
“N20 billion is the current worth of all our assets and they are mainly landed properties with known and reputable companies. If they said N20 billion was misappropriated, is it possible to misappropriate land? Or can I carry land and run away with it?
“We invested in different real estate companies in Lagos, Abuja and many more. We bought properties in some estates at Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos-Ibadan expressway in Shimawa, Abuja and in so many areas from 2019 till date.
“These assets are what give the N20 billion value that is been bandied around. We don’t have cash anywhere; we don’t hold cash. We contribute and we pay to the developer and as we pay to the developer, we post the receipts of payment on our business lounge on Facebook, so every member who reads updates which we post on a daily basis follows everything we do and they are up to date.
“We are 1,400 in number; the 33 who are making this claim were expelled for criminal activities and their aim is to tarnish our reputation. They are doing everything they can to pull the cooperative down and get it destroyed the same way they were criminals in the club which made us expel them.
“After expelling them for the criminal activities, they issued threats, criminal defamation and sundering other crimes. And when they were expelled, they decided that they would bring the club down and the 1,400 members said they could not do it. That is the position; we are not a Ponzi scheme. I’m sure you know what a Ponzi scheme is. You collect money from newcomer to pay old members. That’s a Ponzi scheme.
“Does a Ponzi scheme acquire assets? Do they tie money down with long-term investment? For Ponzi scheme, you don’t have any products; you just collect money and give it to others and continue recycling like that but we don’t do that.
“If a new set of members joins us, we don’t use their money to pay dividends, we use their money to pay for assets we have acquired. We generate money from dividends, we pay them from the number of activities and we can give you the lowdown because we have nothing to hide.
“We have no expense related to asset building. We have no office cost. The case of moving my family abroad is not true. Did they give you proof?
“I am the commissioner of police in Anambra State and my wife is the chairperson of the Police Officers Wives Association (POWA). Can we be running from outside the country? She’s in Abuja as we speak; she will be here tomorrow.
“My two children: one is undergoing the National Youth Service Scheme (NYSC). Do you do NYSC while abroad? The other one is working in Nigeria; she studied at All Nations University in Ghana and came back home. She’s at home and working in Nigeria.
“So I’m here, my wife is here, our two children are here. How have I moved my family abroad? Which of the family are they talking about? Or how did my family move abroad without my knowledge?”
Sahara Reporters