Funso Adebola (not real name), a Lagos-based entrepreneur, has always been wary of travel agents. She knew the risks associated with processing visas, long before she consulted Sky With Us Travels in June 2023. At of the time, she had everything she needed to leave the country, save for a trustworthy travel agent and a little extra cash.

Adebola took the extra step of finding out every detail about the owners of the travel agency. Aside from the media presence of the owners and staff of this agency, Adebola found newspaper publications and awards that convinced her of the legitimacy of the agency.

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In her interview with FIJ, this was what Adebola said about how far she went to confirm that Sky With Us Travels wasn’t a scam:

“To be very sure, I did a background check where I came by the owner with the Instagram handle @sky_superwoman. She claimed to be a certified travel agent/ consultant and had pictures of certifications to back up the claim.

“I checked on Linkedin and I realised that she had even been awarded by the PCP, This Day, and some other newspapers. I saw award and publication timelines that date as far back as two years before I decided I wanted to travel.

“I went to their office in June to make inquiries and see those behind the business myself. I looked up the husband and wife that own the company, what they do, and people that they had done business with. When I got to the office, I even took images of some of the staff and the certifications I found on the walls.”

When the agency then advised Adebola in July to pay N9 million for a CoS, she was not going to hesitate. She had concluded that she would use the agency’s services after she met with its staff twice at the agency’s office building in Lekki, Lagos State.

However, caution nudged her again when the agent assigned to her recommended that she send the money for her CoS to an account number that didn’t belong to the organisation.

Once again, Adebola went the extra mile to verify. She called the agent to inform them about the account name. Every time she called the agents, they reassured her that it was safe to deposit into the account.

“The first time I had questions was when they gave me an account, not the company’s account, to pay into. The name of the account is Drizzy Dee. I asked one time and they assured me to pay into the account. The second time I asked, they explained that it was the account of an agent of theirs in the United Kingdom. They said it was an agent company that I should send the money to and that they would issue a receipt to me and all that.”

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Adebola paid the first installment of the N5 million in July into the account of this agent. By August, Adebola had paid the complete N9 million to the supposed agent company affiliated with the brand. But that singular decision was the beginning of Adebola’s current predicament.

BELATED, FAKE CoS

“It was time for them to deliver, so I kept calling the agents and workers of the agency. They’d tell me to hold on, because of the recent ban and all that. They said the ban was affecting them.

“They eventually sent the CoS to me and I attempted the verification myself. The person I contacted in the United Kingdom to verify for me told me that the CoS was fake. I became inquisitive. They kept telling me to hold on.

“By September I could not wait any longer so I went to the head office of the agency in Lekki. When I got there my fears grew. It was as if there was nobody in the office. All the people I met there were no longer there.

“I saw two new staff that I had never seen before. I kept on asking those about the people I had originally met. They knew the names of those people but they kept telling me they no longer worked with them. They even went as far as telling me one of them resigned the previous day.

“I made a scene and all that. I left Lekki and went to their second office in Ajah. One of the new staff I met at the Lekki office had told me that there was one of the agents I was asking for was in the Ajah office. When I got there, I discovered that they had taken my money. I didn’t meet anything.

“I knew at the time that my money was gone and the company was not doing anything. It was later that they were telling me the case was in Panti; they had taken it to the police station. It’s been more than six months since then. The case is with the police already and I don’t have my certificate. So the stance they are taking now is that they also are victims of the agent they contacted to get the certificates ready.”

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THE AGENT ALSO HAS AN AGENT

Two agents of Sky With Us, one male and one female, had attended to Adebola when she decided to patronise the agency. When FIJ contacted one of these agents, simply named Bukola, her explanation revealed a much larger rabbit hole of middlemen and crime.

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“So, I need to clarify that the transaction between the client and the agent needed for the CoS is independent of Sky With Us. I think we explained this to her when she came,” she said.

“But we have taken responsibility for this. We also paid the money to an agent to work the CoS for us. After the first person we tried did not work, the client became unsettled and told us she wanted a refund

“We also started pressuring our person for a refund. I must explain that we have not been able to get the money and we have taken the case to the police station. We have petitioned the police and we’ve been trying to recover the money.

“Initially we used Mo’s Exclusive, our client in Canada. She transferred us to another agent Amypars Travels in Lagos here. But we have been unable to recover the money from Amypars.

“She has been stalling and telling us to hold on since. As I speak to you, the police are on the matter. We are more than willing to return the client’s money as soon as we get it. But we are also in the middle in this case.

We’re still working on recovering the money from Amypar and the police have assured us that they’ll help us get a resolution. Kindly help us plead with the client to exercise a little more patience as we will help her get her money. We will be giving you updates from time to time. Thank you so much.”

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THE CHAIN DOESN’T END

After two unsuccessful attempts, FIJ reached Amypars Travels on January 25 to find out if she had indeed been paid for COS and why she had not delivered. However, FIJ found that the middlemen chain was longer than it originally appeared.

Amypars explained her collaboration with Mo’s exclusives, the brand connected to Sky With Us, and a failed attempt at using the contact of another partner agent to get the Certificates of Sponsorship.

“The Bukola lady and the Sky With Us people were people Mo’s exclusives referred to me. Mo is in Canada and she is like a sister to me. Normally I had a plug I use for the CoS but in this particular instance, we have encountered several instances where they ban some of the clients after they arrived in the United Kingdom,” she said.

“So a sister company in Abuja, Her Visa Travels, introduced me to an agent named Richard who was supposed to be a medic in the United Kingdom. Before I went fully into a deal with the person, I had tried to verify some of the samples he sent and they went through.

“I paid a commitment fee of N1 million to get these samples from him and verify them. So, I went all in with the corporation my friend. We had other people do this thing, other agents. This one was even slightly cheaper than others and for each COS we got, we always verified before we sent it to the client.

“It was when one of the clients got banned that I knew something was up. They gave one of my clients a 10-year ban. All these while, I carried my friend who introduced me to Richard in the United Kingdom along. It was that promised to look into it. By this time, monies had gone.

“We started working on how to recover monies back. We got talking with Richard to at least send money back for the people that have not travelled yet since the people we processed back have been banned. I even had to pay the lawyer.

“Her Visa Travels that linked me to the guy started pulling. We had to write a letter to the UK embassy to block off the applications on the recommendations of the lawyer. Some of the clients even refused to stop the application.

“Going back to our guy with the situation, he first promised us that he was going to switch companies for the clients. Later, he said he was going to refund. That was the last time we heard from him. He said he was going to send N23 million back. He blocked me till today.

“So I had to get a lawyer in Nigeria. I got the police and I even had to Abuja I wrote a petition already to Zone 2 and we copied the Inspector General. It Abuja, I discovered that the lady had packed from her office.

“She left clean and good. I was still in Abuja when I got a petition from Bukola at Alabo. Meanwhile, the guy too suddenly became untraceable. His contacts were no longer existing. I am not even sure whether the name he gave us was his name. I have been carrying Bukola and her client along.”

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I TRUSTED THE AGENCY, I JUST WANT MY MONEY BACK

Adebola’s situation appears like the consequence of a series of unfortunate coincidences, despite her cautious persona and how much research she did. First, she paid a verified agency which in turn found itself paying a third-party agent that lost money to a possible swindler. However, her case is not unique.

FIJ has earlier reported how Nigerians fall victim to the roulette of exploiting work visas to emigrate to the United Kingdom. Like in the case of Adebola, there are always many middlemen in the chain. Most poignantly, none of these middlemen has ever appeared to be legitimate.

Also, people who take this route stand the chance of being neglected by the care homes they purchase jobs from if they successfully emigrate. During the process of communicating with both agents and the police, FIJ gave Adebola feedback on the situation. Her request, however, remained consistent.

“True, Bukola explained some of these things. I even have a picture of the charge sheet against Amypar Travel,” she said. “But I trusted these people; they are supposed to be a legally registered agency. I sold some of my belongings to gather this money. There should be a refund process. I just want my money back.”