Top 11 Ponzi schemes that have left Ugandans in tears

This is not the first scheme to have taken clients’  money in the country,  where 37,000 people have been affected. Below are some of them.

Caring for Orphans, widows and the Elderly

Caring for Orphans, widows and the Elderly (Cowe) was established by Andrew Kaggwa, Nixon Balikowa, Mpologoma Kagimu, Efrance Saano, Oliver Nanziri and Pius Kyagaba as a non-governmental organisation on July 27, 2001.

The organisation that operated mostly in western Uganda started off by helping vulnerable people to escape poverty. 

Then it started telling people to save money, which would be invested and each member would get interest of 30 percent every month. This prompted many people to join the group. Each would pay Shs65,000 as membership fees and initial investment. 

Months after the investment, the investors couldn’t access their savings nor get interest. It was at that time that the government intervened and halted their operations.  

The directors of COWE later registered it as a company under the name M/S COWE (CARING FOR ORPHANS WIDOWS AND ELDERLY LIMITED) on January 3, 2002, and continued receiving money from victims.  

Four years after operations, COWE closed operations and the directors fled with more than Shs3b of investors’ money. Bank of Uganda froze their accounts, but they were able to unfreeze them after a court battle. They also didn’t refund the money to the victims.

DUTCH INTERNATIONAL

DUTCH INTERNATIONAL, which also operated in  western and eastern Uganda, made the same promises to people that they would get huge interests after investing their money in the organisation.

They got members in droves before they closed their operations and directors disappeared. The directors of Dutch International, Nixon Balikowa and Joshua Kasaga, were arrested later and charged in court.  

They were later convicted and sentenced to seven years. However, they were acquitted on appeal.  More than Shs20b of investors’ money is said to have been lost. 

Duch International Tea Project

Duch International Tea Project targeted tea farmers in western Uganda in 2003 and 2009. 

The managers promised financial help to the farmers after they had saved some money. Whatever vulnerable tea farmers saved was stolen by their fraudsters. Police estimate the theft to be around Shs30b.

D9 Club

D9 Club was an investment club that started in 2016. It targeted middle income people to invest huge amounts of money to get a 10 percent return every month. Pentecostal churches were their major focus to get investors and they got many of them.

In the initial months, D9 Club managers paid the 10 per cent interest to their investors.

Around May, 2017, D9 Club started defaulting. Complaints by the investors reached the Bank of Uganda. The directors closed shop and disappeared without refunding their investors’ money. 

Financial Intelligence Authority froze at least US$1.7m (Shs6.1b) funds on D9 Club accounts. 

Investors lost Shs18b they invested in D9 Club.

FX Salongo (U) Limited

FX Salongo (U) Limited exploited the new business of online forex to get unsuspected clients in 2011. The two companies claimed that they were investing the money on the international stock exchanges. 

The companies claimed to have experts that monitor profitable companies that are on the stock exchange in which they invest the money and get huge returns. 

Investors were promised 20.4 percent every month on their investment. 

More than 2,000 clients invested millions of shillings each. They only got returns for a few months before the managers closed shop and disappeared for good. 

More than Shs18b of investors money was stolen by the managers.

Reilag Investments

Reilag Investments too used the same online forex investment to rip off its victims’ investment. Reilag Investments managers promised a 10 percent return on the investments. Police stated that around 4,000 people were affected when the fraud and more than Shs40b was lost.

Tesco Traders, Massive Ad.com and Telex Free Inc

Tesco Traders, Massive Ad.com and Telex Free Inc was an online investment that targeted youth educated people. The payments were made online and money sent to offshore accounts. 

The clients would log on the website and monitor their investment funds grow online. More than 7,000 Ugandans joined the investment. But in 2014, they were blocked from accessing their accounts of the schemes. Police were unable to recover their money since the money was sent to an account in South American countries. 

The loss was estimated to be around Shs30b. 

AIM Global Alliance

AIM Global Alliance started in 2014 promising to tackle poverty and unemployment. 

It targeted parents of the unemployed youth all over the countryside promising them jobs if they paid Shs900,000 each and Shs150,000 for upkeep. 

They would transport the unemployed youth to other locations where they would be given food supplements to sell on pretext that they were imparting marketing skills in them before they would get them the jobs of their choice. 

After several days, the youth would be abandoned. More than 10,000 youth have been victims of this Ponzi and an estimated Shs10b has been lost.

BLQ Sports SMC

BLQ Sports SMC became a popular website for sports lovers who are interested in betting. The fans would bet online and pay using the mobile money accounts. Many victims would keep the deposit in terms of money on the website’s account to allow them to bet when time is right. 

At least 6,000 youths had deposited over Shs4.5b when the website was closed by its owner Yinghe Chen. Chen was arrested in June this year and taken to court. The case is pending hearing. None of the victims got a refund of their money.

Global Crypto Currencies Limited

Global Crypto Currencies Limited’s 800 clients lost Shs11.2b in fraud in 2020 when the company closed. 

The manager, Mr Andrew Kaggwa, had earlier been involved in pyramid schemes. Kaggwa was arrested and taken to court but the case is still pending hearing.