Love Oladele, a business coach and consultant, was employed by Stobdaj Global, a travel agency, in 2013 to market the company’s services.

Years down the line, Stobdaj took clients’ money and failed to render visa services to them. Oladele became the one to blame from the client’s perspective, but she has told FIJ that she was scammed too.

“I took my cousin to Love Oladele for a ‘work and live in Canada’ project she organised in 2013. But it ended up being a scam. We paid N50,000 as the registration fee for the visa on January 15, 2013. We never got the money back.”

Those were the words of Austin Ibe (real name withheld), an Abuja resident, who accused Oladele of a visa fee scam.

Checks by FIJ showed that Oladele was the chief executive of Today’s Leaders International LTD, a training and consulting firm in Abuja.

According to Ibe, Oladele announced a travel scheme for Nigerians interested in working, studying and living in Canada or Australia in 2013.

“People from different parts of the country keyed into it. She had an office then in Gwarimpa. I took my cousin there, and when we got there, they said registration was N50,000. We paid and they issued us a receipt,” Ibe told FIJ.

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Ibe said his cousin was supposed to make an additional payment for the visa after some weeks, but there was no update from the coach even after the time for payment had elapsed.

“I became skeptical. Anytime we called her office, they would tell us stories. We were ready to make the additional payment but later discovered that the whole thing was a scam. She told us she did not know that it was a fraud,” he added.

“The issue was escalated to the police at Gwarimpa. But along the line, she walked away and did not return our money. She did not make any refund to us. If she did refund others, she did not return the money to us.

“You need to see the crowd at the police station that time, but I don’t know what she did because she got away with it at the end of the day,” he added.

However, FIJ’s findings uncovered a large-scale fraudulent visa scheme that was beyond Oladele’s control.

Just like Ibe, Oladele was a victim of Stobdaj Global Travel and Tours, the travel agency that hired her to promote its services in 2013.

LOVE OLADELE’S RESPONSE

When FIJ spoke with Oladele on August 29, she explained that she never knew Stobdaj Global would scam her even though she had her reservations about partnering with the company in the first place.

“In 2013, a guy approached me and said he wanted me to market for his company called Stobdaj. It’s a travel agency, and they claimed they wanted to help Nigerians who want to travel to Canada and some other countries for study, work or tour,” said Oladele.

READ ALSO: One Year After Avidela Travel Agency Took Man’s N1m, It Has Not Delivered Australian Visa

“I initially turned down the offer because I always encourage young people to stay back in Nigeria and do business. I had just finished a training session that day and there were a lot of youths in my office who advised me to hear them out. They said they were interested in travelling abroad. In the end, I agreed to market the company.”

She said Stobdaj then came with marketing flyers, which she often gave out to those who came to her office. FIJ learnt that some of these people showed interest.

‘I NEVER KNEW THEY WERE SCAMMERS’

“I did not know that the company was filled with scammers. They had me and some other people as marketers. If you went to their office then, you would see a white man sitting there. It was really a planned thing. I did my due diligence and it seemed legitimate,” Oladele further disclosed to FIJ.

“They told us that we, the marketers, should be collecting the registration fee from interested people and then pay it to them. We did that for about three months. They were giving me a 10 percent commission.

“The registration fee was N50,000 while the visa fee was N600,000. I had 103 clients. Out of these clients, about 60 of them paid the full visa fees.”

According to Oladele, the plan was for registered clients to pay the remaining fee once the visa was out.

“When they told us that the visa was out, they actually came with the visas. Then people were now paying their N600,000,” she revealed.

But she said that, instead of giving out visas to those who had already paid, Stobdaj only showed them their visas and refused to issue them to the owners.

“I was insisting that they should issue out visas to those who had paid. But they were giving excuses. My younger brother had paid for his own visa as well as his girlfriend too.

“I started suspecting that they were fraudulent. One of them did something that made me believe they were scammers and I found that the visas were fake.”

POLICE ARRESTED DIRECTOR OF STOBDAJ

Oladele said she promptly went to the police station at Gwarimpa to report the incident and one of the top officials was arrested.

But she said by the time the police got to the company, others had fled, including the two white men who used to sit at their office.

“The police found out that the person they arrested was even the director of the company. They did their investigation and the police said it was a serious case,” Oladele told FIJ.

“One of my clients was the daughter of a commissioner of police in the force headquarters at the time. She reported the case to the force headquarters and from there it became a court case.

“Back then, some people suspected that I might be involved in the scam. But I explained my side of the story to the court and it was concluded I wasn’t part of the scam plan.”

READ ALSO: No Visa, No Refund 3 Years After Sheyi Shobayo of Sposh Travels and Tours Took Trader’s N255,000

STOBDAJ DIRECTOR PRONOUNCED DEAD AMID COURT CASE

Oladele revealed that the Stobdaj director’s lawyers declared their client dead amid the court tussle in 2014. FIJ gathered that this announcement put an end to the legal battle.

She explained that the police had beaten the arrested director in an attempt to force him to confess. He got injured during this process and she had to pay for his hospital bills.

“The case dragged from 2013 to 2014. I first found that the sister of the director was a policewoman. And then one day, the lawyers told the court that the guy was dead,” Oladele said.

“It was a disappointing and crazy thing. I asked for an obituary and evidence, but none was provided to me. That was how the court struck out the case. The court said it was because the director was dead.

“It was a terrible period for me. I was the one footing the bills for lawyers. Anytime the police wanted to travel and all, I would pay. I had made up my mind to find a way to pay my clients, but they said I should not bother with the refund because they saw all my efforts to get those people arrested.”

While efforts to know if the company was still in existence proved futile, FIJ found that a company named Stobdaj Global Resources LTD was incorporated in Ogun State with Registration Number 1004682.

The company was registered on January 5, 2012, with registered office address NO 9 NEPA RD IMO ABEOKUTA, OGUN.

When FIJ called the phone numbers on the flyers obtained from Oladele, none was available. WhatsApp messages sent to the numbers were also not delivered at publication time..

When FIJ looked up the contact information on Truecaller, two names were associated with both numbers: John Stobdaj and Ovie Wait.