When a fellow member of his church approached Thomas Ogechukwu, a Lagos State businessman, with news of an online investment platform called AIM, he believed he had discovered a promising business opportunity.
In hindsight, Ogechukwu now reveals that what was initially presented as a legitimate business model turned out to be an elaborate fraudulent scheme.
According to Ogechukwu, the operators of AIM promised him a return of N33,000 in thirty-three days if he invested N12,000. They claimed that by investing, he would acquire an online product that would generate profits for him during the 35-day waiting period.
Between August 20 and 23, Ogechukwu invested a substantial sum of N782,000, hoping to realise a significant profit of N2.3 million when the investment reached maturity but his hopes were shattered.
WWW.SEARCHNG.NG – Search on Sells.ng Nigeria's First Ecommerce Shopping Search Engine ...For More About This Post: Instagram Hair Influencer Tessy Oluchi Scammed Investors of Millions — and Even Asked them to Pay More!
“After I had invested a substantial amount of money, the AIM operators on WhatsApp began claiming that they were experiencing issues with their website. They insisted that if we wanted to safeguard our investments, we needed to upgrade our accounts by adding an additional N50,000,” Ogechukwu told FIJ last Friday.
A memorandum of understand usually received by investors after they commit their money to AIM
“When I inquired about the fate of our funds, they informed me that it had all disappeared. Now, they have launched another platform called GAC and are engaging in the same deceitful activities.”
Ogechukwu’s experience is not unique. Another Lagos resident, who lost N533,800, told FIJ that AIM operators had claimed to be based in Hong Kong with representatives in Nigeria.
She explained that they had sold her an investment platform that purportedly generated daily profits until she decided to withdraw at the end of thirty-three days.
WWW.SEARCHNG.NG – Search on Sells.ng Nigeria's First Ecommerce Shopping Search Engine ...For More About This Post: How HoneyPays’ Jeremy Woyens Left Investors Bitter before Disappearing with their Millions
According to her, these products could include anything such as cryptocurrencies, with some promising investors a nine percent daily return, with the funds being credited to their online wallets.
One of Ogechukwu’s transfers to AIM
“Every time we attempted to make a withdrawal, they deducted five percent from our profits. To deceive us further, they stated that withdrawals were only allowed on weekends because they were upgrading their website,” she recounted.
“After the supposed upgrade, we were no longer able to access our funds. They claimed that some individuals were attempting to infiltrate the system and insisted that we needed to pay N50,000 to secure our accounts. Eventually, they admitted that we had fallen victim to a scam.”
FIJ’s attempts to contact one of AIM’s operators using the provided phone number yielded no response.
The post AIM Investment Defrauds 2 Lagos Residents of N1.3m Then Rebrands to GAC appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.