“Seeing is believing” is a maxim that explains why beliefs can turn into convictions, but sometimes, the more one looks, the less one sees. This aptly describes how Oxford Group International, a conglomerate of several businesses, defrauded many Nigerians of millions under the guise of investment opportunities in 2022.

Posing as a trusted company with stupendous landmarks, they vanished with people’s hard-earned money. Three years later, the refrain on the lips of its investors remains, “I want my money back”.

For Joseph Ogunleye, a retired engineer based in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Oxford Group seemed like the perfect organisation to invest with. Before investing his now withheld N2 million with Oxford Group, he travelled down from Akure, Ondo State, his then residence, to Lagos State, to meet with Oxford Group’s personnel in October 2021. Staff of the firm showed him schools and a filling station owned by the company. This was enough to convince him that the N1 million he had invested earlier was in safe hands.

Ogunleye’s post-dated check from Oxford

On November 1, 2021, Ogunleye invested another N2 million with Oxford Group without waiting for the maturation of his first investment, expecting to receive N2,647,500 on November 1 the following year, but this decision keeps haunting him. When the first N1 million investment reached maturity, the company paid him the exact N1 million he had invested in three tranches. This was when Ogunleye began to admit that the more there is, the less one sees.

READ MORE: Accountant Invested 11m With Oxford Int’l Group So He Could Pay His Tuition. He Lost His Money and UK Studentship

“When my second investment was due, they began to tell me mundane stories. They phoned me not to present the postdated check given to me to the bank, but I refused,” Ogunleye told EQ.

“They said they would pay me cash, but I refused. I presented the check at the bank, but it bounced. I emailed and called their customer service, but they gave me flimsy excuses. The N2 million is nothing to me because of the naira devaluation, but they should pay my money and stop changing their names.”

While Ogunleye can still survive the pains Oxford has caused him, the case is grimmer for Adedayo Fagbohun, a retired civil servant in Ibadan, whose wife, he claimed, left him after Oxford would not release his investment capital. Fagbohun, who described himself as a “depressed man”, told EQ that Oxford took his entire savings and investment as a federal government staffer for 35 years.

Fagbohun said Adekoya Olugbenga, the then Chief Auditor of Oxford Group living in his area, introduced him to Oxford and assured him he would get an interest on his money. He said Olugbenga made the investment process easy as he did not leave Ibadan. According to Fagbohun, Olugbenga gave him all the documents, which he signed and then took to Lagos.

READ MORE: Oxford International Group Cuts Off Lagos Banker After ‘Stealing’ N3m From Her

Now in the dumps, Fagbohun invested his entire worth of N20 million on April 29, 2022, and the company gave him a postdated check for March 5, 2023. Upon attempting to claim his expected investment the following year, the bank told him the Oxford account with them was empty.

Fagbohun’s post-dated check from Oxford

“Adekoya took me to Panti to report Oxford, but they said we should bring N500,000 before they can do anything on my case. I met the Chief Security Officer of Oxford in Lagos about my money, but he offered to give me land. I told him I didn’t want land but my money. Since July 2023, they haven’t paid me a dime despite him telling a lawyer to draft an agreement that they’d pay me N2 million monthly,” Fagbohun told EQ.

Beatrice Ogundare, an Abuja-based aged woman, has N46 million stuck with Oxford Group Internationals, but it is not her money that worries her but other people’s money she invested on their behalf. Since Oxford Group severed ties with her, she wakes up to a foundation of curses from several people daily.

The people she spread Oxford’s gospel to continue to call and threaten her. One man even reported her to her boss, and her husband almost left her at a point.

One of the post-dated checks Ogundare received from Oxford

Ogundare told EQ that she fell for the deceit of Oxford Group in March 2021 when a man took her to Mariam Animashaun, one of its managing directors, who gave her an instant interest when she invested N200,000. That same day, she said, she invested N2.3 million and began to spread the gospel of Oxford Group Internationals.

READ MORE: ‘Investor’ Lost Money to Teniola Adesanya’s Oxford International Group, Yet He’s the One the Police Arrested

“After that, I started adding whatever I got and started evangelising to people. I believed that Mariam would not lead me astray since we’re from the same place. I told my husband, and he said we could invest there. My husband and kids invested their all. My colleagues then gave me money, and I invested with them,” Ogundare told EQ.

A post-dated check from Oxford to Ogundare

Ogundare got the rudest shock of her life when Oxford started giving her the runaround in April 2022, when her first investment had reached maturity.

This continued until 2023 when the last investment reached maturity. Animashaun would not tell her Oxford had an issue with the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) until she found out herself. But it was too late as Animashaun stopped taking her calls.

Another post-dated check from Oxford to Ogundare

“An in-law who gave me N10 million needs her money so badly that I can’t think of mine. Another investor who joined them through me reported me to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), but the anti-graft agency found that I was a victim. This almost cost me my job and marriage. I need my money back,” she said.

A post-dated check from Oxford to Ogundare

Like other investors, Comfort Oyedijo, a Lagos-based woman, was swayed by Oxford Group’s flashy property portfolio, which they paraded to build credibility. Now, she knows that all that glitters is not gold, but at the cost of N30 million and seven and a half yet-to-be-allocated plots of land.

READ MORE: UPDATED: 8 New Names Join EQ’s Directory of Investment Scammers

Between 2021 and 2022, she paid for five more plots but has yet to receive any of them. In June 2021, she invested N5 million with Oxford, and by November 2021, she had invested another N30 million and has received neither.

A N30 million posted-dated check from Oxford to Oyedijo

“Oxford charged 5% for documentation and N30,000 per plot for allocation, which I paid in full. They also promised me two and a half plots but they haven’t given me anything,” Oyedijo told EQ.

“In June 2022, Oxford began giving me the runaround when my money was due. I couldn’t even support my son’s wedding. They struggled to give me N5 million out of the N35 million I invested, and since then, they haven’t released my remaining N30 million. I estimate they owe me N88.5 million in today’s naira value, but I want my N30 million back.”

When EQ called Teniola Adesanya, the chairman of Oxford International Group, his line did not connect. Eight days later, he had not responded to a text sent to his phone.

READ ALSO: Instagram Hair Influencer Tessy Oluchi Scammed Investors of Millions — and Even Asked them to Pay More!

THE HUNTING OF OXFORD’S INVESTORS BY OXFORD GROUP’S CHAIRMAN

Olamilekan Akinduro, a Lagos-based accountant with N10.5 million still held by Oxford Group, joined forces with other disgruntled investors to form a group aimed at recovering their funds. This action did not sit well with Adesanya, who petitioned the police and accused Akinduro of inciting violence against him.

In a separate conversation with EQ this year, Akinduro mentioned that he had been in contact with other frustrated Oxford Group investors, and they were planning to find a way to recover their money.

Later, Akinduro informed EQ that members of the aggrieved investors’ group had pooled some funds which he and another investor used to travel to Abuja. There, they presented their case to Benjamin Kalu, the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives.

On August 10, the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) arrested Akinduro for mobilising the group of Oxford International Group investors to demand their overdue funds. The authorities, however, claimed he had created the group to incite violence against Adesanya.
The post How Oxford Group’s Multimillion Naira Fraud Cost Investors Their Marriages, Health, Life Savings appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.