Tingo (TIO) Fraud Revealing Hindenburg Report Case

D. New Jersey

Court

2:23-cv-03151

Case number

31 Mar 2023

Class period Start

06 Jun 2023

Class period End

07 Aug 2023

Lead Plaintiff motion deadline

Hindenburg Research's report on Tingo (NASDAQ: TIO) bluntly accuses the company of being an unmistakable scam, featuring entirely fabricated financials.
 $TIO dropped over 50%, seriously damaging shareholders.
Investors may have reasons to suspect Tingo, its Leaders, and its Accountables of multiple gross violations and unlawful business practices which led to investment losses for shareholders.
On June 6, 2023, Hindenburg Research issued a report on Tingo (NASDAQ: TIO) stating that "we believe the company is an exceptionally obvious scam with completely fabricated financials."

Tingo was founded and is spearheaded by “Dozy” Mmobuosi, CEO of the key holding company entity. According to the report, Dozy is regularly described by the media as a billionaire and made waves earlier this year when he attempted to acquire the now-Premier League soccer team Sheffield United.

Among other things, Hindenburg states: 
"We’ve identified major red flags with Dozy’s background. For starters, he appears to have fabricated his biographical claim to have developed the first mobile payment app in Nigeria. We contacted the app’s actual creator, who called Dozy’s claims “a pure lie”.
Dozy claimed to have received a Ph.D. in rural advancement from a Malaysian university in 2007. We contacted the school to verify the degree. They wrote back saying no one by his name was found in their verification system. 
In 2019, Dozy claimed to have launched “Tingo Airlines” and posted social media messages encouraging customers to “fly with Tingo Airlines today”. Media outlets later uncovered that Tingo had photoshopped its logo onto pictures of airplanes. Dozy later admitted to never owning any actual aircraft. 
In April 2023, Tingo’s Co-Chairman wrote a public letter to Dozy, filed with the SEC, saying he could not approve the company’s annual report and felt it “necessary to recuse myself by resigning” due to “many critical questions, comments and recommendations” that went “unanswered and unheeded”.
Tingo’s food division is 7 months old, yet claimed to generate $577.2 million in revenue last quarter alone, representing 68% of total reported revenue. If accurate, its claimed 24.8% operating margins would exceed those of every major comparable food company. Yet, Tingo has no food processing facility of its own. Rather, it claims its explosive revenue and profitability is derived from acting as a middleman between Nigerian farmers and an unnamed third-party food processor. 
Subsequent to the  “groundbreaking”, Tingo announced a $150 million agreement with a UK entity called Evtec Energy to build solar panels for its non-existent food processing facility. Funding for the deal is slated to be provided through Evtec, but UK filings show that Evtec was “Dormant” as of its most recent annual report and held zero cash in the bank.
A local media outlet identified and contacted the cooperatives. Both said they had never heard of Tingo and had fewer than 100 farmers in each cooperative. We were able to make contact with one of the cooperatives. Its owner reiterated having no relationship with Tingo and flat-out told us “they are scammers”.
Our checks with the Nigerian Communications Commission showed it has no record of Tingo being a mobile licensee at all, despite company claims of having 12 million mobile customers.
We visited Tingo Mobile’s office in Nigeria and found only a handful of employees and a sign posted on its door by federal tax authorities stating that the company is delinquent on its tax obligations.
TingoPay claimed in 2021 to have launched a partnership with a major local bank. Two days after Tingo’s blockbuster announcement, the bank put out a statement calling Tingo’s claim false and that it had “NOT concluded any agreement with Tingo International in respect of any payment system whatsoever”.
Despite Tingo’s bold claims, we found no import/export records from Tingo at all through searches of Nigerian customs and trading databases. 
Tingo’s financial statements are riddled with errors and typos, other basic errors like incorrect math, and leaving zeroes off key metrics. 
More troublingly, Tingo’s cash flow and balance sheet statements do not reconcile and show major errors indicating a complete lack of financial controls. Its cash flow statements regularly subtract items from cash that should be added and vice versa.
After the report was released, $TIO dropped over 50%, seriously damaging shareholders.

Taking revealed facts into account, Investors may have reasons to suspect Tingo, its Leaders, and its Accountables of multiple gross violations and unlawful business practices which led to investment losses for shareholders.

Case Status

Case Consolidation

Alleged Offence

Misleading Statements,

Financial Misrepresentation,

Fraud,

Failure to Disclose,

Omissions

Suspected Party

Directors,

Management,

Shareholder,

Service Provider

Security Type

Stocks

Trade Direction

Long

Shock Event Date

06 June 2023

Filing date

07 June 2023

Lead Plaintiff Deadline

07 August 2023

Tingo (TIO) Fraud Revealing Hindenburg Report Case

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