Investors storm VIP Portal's forex bureau offices in Limuru Town,
Kiambu. VIP Portal promised a five per cent commission per month for
every new member an investor brought in. As investors in Limuru
shovelled their hard-earned savings into VIP Portal, so did their
counterparts in Nyeri, Kisumu, Kisii, Nakuru and Nairobi. PHOTO | ERIC
WAINA
Mr Robert Siahi had big dreams last year. He wanted to pursue a degree course in a local university.
Already
an established trader in Limuru, Mr Siahi thought of financing his
dream. During a meeting with one of his friends, he was encouraged to
put his money in VIP Portal, a forex brokerage firm based in Limuru,
Kiambu County.
“A few days later, I
saw Mr Alfred Wangai discussing how profitable forex was on a local TV,”
Mr Siahi says. “The figures whetted my appetite and I decided to
invest.” Mr Alfred Wangai is one of the proprietors of VIP Portal.
On
April 16, 2014, Mr Siahi invested Sh106,000 and on May 22, 2014, he put
in an additional Sh500,000. “My contract with Mr Wangai was supposed to
bring me Sh1.2 million after 75 working days. It was to be disbursed
within three phases but this never happened.” The loss was devastating.
It ended Mr Siahi's dream of joining university.
Mr
Siahi is among 13,000 investors, who have lost over Sh1.1 billion to
VIP Portal in what could turn out to be the biggest forex scam in
Kenya’s history.
REGIONAL GROUPS
According to investigations carried out by Money, unsuspecting investors were subdivided into groups, with the Nairobi team claimed to have lost about Sh300 million.
According
to police investigations carried out last year, VIP Portal received
over Sh1.08 billion between October 2013 and September 2014.
The deposits were from unsuspecting investors in Limuru, Nairobi, Nakuru, Nyeri, Kisii and Kisumu.
According
to Mr Siahi, Mr Wangai first opened his offices in Limuru on or around
June 2013. “After opening his offices at K-Unity Building (also known as
Ushirika House), Mr Wangai tapped the locals to market his firm,” Mr
Siahi says.
“It was easy for us to believe in the people we were accustomed to.”
By
October 2013, VIP Portal had spread across Limuru. In some cases, Mr
Wangai asked investors to sell their land and deposit the money with VIP
Portal with a promise that he would more than double it in less than a
month, Mr Siahi said.
VIP Portal
promised a five per cent commission per month for every new member an
investor brought in. As investors in Limuru shovelled their hard-earned
savings into VIP Portal, so did their counterparts in Nyeri, Kisumu,
Kisii, Nakuru and Nairobi.
The minimum the investors
were required to part with was Sh25,000. Meanwhile, Mr Wangai turned to
television talk shows to market his firm. His right-hand man, Mr Felix
Oluoch, was his chief online publicist.
In
messages to investors, Mr Oluoch, who describes himself as “a technical
forex trader, a technical qualitative analyst and a strategist, a hedge
fund trader and an international entrepreneur”, said Mr Wangai was
paying 60 to 80 per cent dividends in four months.
He claimed that VIP Portal had a global office at a little known island St Vincent and the Grenadines.
A
few weeks before investors began demanding payments, Money has learned,
they questioned the existence of an international office.
Contacted,
the Financial Services Authority of St Vincent and the Grenadines
denied licensing VIP Portal. But in a sworn affidavit on July 17, last
year, Mr Wangai maintained that the firm was incorporated under the
Companies Act on August 1, 2013 and incorporated as an international
business in St Vincent and the Grenadines since August 2013.
OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS
On
7 July, last year, a Nairobi court stopped any transaction in VIP
Portal’s four accounts — VIP Portal Ltd, VIP Forex Savings and
Co-operative Ltd, VIP Institute of Forex at Family Bank, and VIP Portal
Ltd at Barclays Bank.
By the time
the accounts were frozen, the firm had a balance of Sh174 million since
its directors, Mr Wangai, Mr Collins Thumbi Mundia, Mr Daniel Komo, and
Ms Nkatha Karimi had withdrawn much of the Sh1.08 billion.
In
a letter dated July 30, 2014 from the Law Society of Kenya to the
Inspector-General of police and copied to the CID director and the
Central Bank, VIP Portal received deposits from Ms Bernise Kirungi, Mr
Francis Thuo and Mr James Mbuthia amounting to Sh3,061,585 between April
29, 2014 and June 10, 2014.
In a
reply to the law society, the Inspector-General of police noted that VIP
Portal had been under the investigation of the DCIO, Limuru, since
March 2014.
The DCIO wrote to Central
Bank seeking to establish whether VIP Portal was registered by the
regulator to trade in forex or carry out any banking business. Central
Bank denied licensing it.
Additionally,
in a letter signed by officer in charge Joseph Mugwanja, on May 20,
2014, the Banking Fraud Investigations Unit started an inquiry, which
established that between October 1, 2013 and May 28, 2014, VIP Portal
received Sh1.08 billion from investors.
Of
this amount, Sh7.6 million was paid out to Ms Karimi and Mr Mundia,
Sh19.3 million was wired to the accounts of FXCM Markets Ltd of US,
while Sh528 million was noted to have been paid out to the investors.
In
August 2014, VIP Portal opened new ‘accounts’ abroad to facilitate
deposits. “We have over 5,000 accounts abroad that need to be catered
for and hence the reason why we partnered with UBA Bank,” Mr Oluoch told
investors.
Mr Daniel Njuguna Mwangi, UBA Kenya, head of marketing and corporate relations refutes the claims by the forex trading firm.
"VIP
Portal approached us with a view to opening an account. However, after
conducting our due diligence, the bank declined to open any accounts for
both the company and the investors," Mr Mwangi said.
Notably,
closing of the three local accounts has since become the reason that
VIP Portal uses to counter accusations by its investors.
Take
this message by Mathews Mutonga to VIP Portal: “I invested Sh50,000 in
April 2014 and I received Sh30,000 once and the dividends stopped
coming. I paid Sh400,000 and received Sh320,000 once and the dividends
stopped.
Then I paid Sh300,000 and
got nothing.” In its response, VIP Portal said, “It is the banks that
are holding your money, not VIP Portal.”
As the reality dawned on investors that they were conned, some started begging.
Mr
Mutonga, together with another investor, Ms Anne Wangui, wrote to VIP
Portal: “I have been told that I would be paid within three days since
June 2014. The money invested is what my family is relying on to pay for
my children’s school fees.
You told
me that my papers were among those taken by Central Bank anti-fraud
police but all I know is that you owe us Sh750,000. I hope I will one
day get my money back.”
MISSING FILES
During
a meeting at Alders Restaurant in Limuru, the aggrieved investors
invited Mr Wangai but he declined to attend, says Mr Siahi.
“The last I saw him was near K-Unity, where he was heavily guarded.”
The investors’ pursuit for justice has also been characterised by delaying tactics.
“The
case was to start last year, but we had instances where files
disappeared and others where Mr Wangai refused to accept summons or
claimed he wasn’t served,” says Mr Siahi.
Even with claims of conning investors over Sh1.08 billion, VIP Portal has since launched a new forex product dubbed PAMMOJA.
“You
fund your account via Netteller, then we trade on your behalf and share
the profits,” Mr Oluoch told an investor, Mr Boniface Ndichu.
According
to Mr Oluoch, PAMMOJA is a deal between investors and VIP Portal, where
the firm has full access to an investors’ money, which it uses to trade
on their behalf and later share the profits every 29th working day of
the month.
EDITOR'S UPDATE: UBA Kenya response to the claims by VIP Portal.
No comments :
Post a Comment