The Managing Director of Platinum Multi-purpose Cooperative Society Limited, Mr. Michael Osasogie Obasuyi, has been detained by the Effective and Financial Crime Commission for conspiracy, cybercrime, and laundering of N11.498 billion!
According to EFCC, Mr. Michael Osasogie Obasuyi, who is also the MD of Smartmicro Systems Ltd, had penned a petition in March 2018 to the commission against a mobile and electronic payment provider company.
The anti-graft agency stated this in a dramatic twist, the petitioner firm had also filed a counter-petition against Smartmicro and Obasuyi, leading the commission to start investigations into Obasuyi’s activities.
Smartmicro has approached the firm in 2012 for the deployment of bulk purchase solution called “Corporatepay” to enhance the payment of salaries of Delta State employees in microfinance banks.
It was also alleged that the firm took an extra outbound fund transfer solution called “Fundgate” in 2017, which demand Smartmicro to maintain a pre-funded settlement account with a first generation bank for settlement of account it had initiated.
The firm further alleged that the microfinance bank, sometime in March 2018, disclosed that the settlement account was in debt of N11,498,944,038.29.
Mr. Obasuyi, in the statement, that he made to the Commission, confessed to have committed the alleged crime, saying that he generated fraudulent and imaginary monies through the assistance of “Fundgate” financial application from the firm.
A statement that was being signed by the Spokesman for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said,
“The commission, in the course of investigation recovered a paper version of the programme called MicroSwitchServer1, which he allegedly used to create and post the imaginary monies.
He also admitted to have diverted to his personal use N7,519, 381, 202 out of N11,498,944,038.29.
The Commission has so far recovered N2,903,727,563.92, $37,992.87 and 18,538.09 found in Obasuyi’s accounts in various banks in the country.
Also, a total of 20 properties located in various parts of Edo, Rivers and Lagos States and Abuja, worth several millions of Naira, have been traced to Obasuyi, which were acquired with proceeds of crime.
Obasuyi, who also admitted to have purchased 134 buses from the proceeds of crime, runs the popular Platinum Cruise Transport Company. He will soon be charged to court as soon as investigations are concluded.”
