SEC Cites Delays Prosecuting Case vs. Nigerian Fraudsters Due to Their ‘Funding’ Issues

The defendants in a fraud complaint brought by the SEC need a 10-day deadline extension to Feb. 7 to confer with the commission and jointly submit a proposed discovery plan and a schedule for any preliminary injunction hearing, the SEC wrote U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman for Southern New York in Manhattan in a letter Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-10928). The SEC sued Dec. 18 to stop three connected companies and their CEO from running a “staggering” fraud scheme involving a private Nigerian company, Tingo Mobile, that purportedly sourced mobile handsets and services to “millions of farmers,” but actually had “no meaningful operations or customers” (see 2312190018). The defendants need the additional time “to continue working through the funding and representation issues” involved in retaining counsel, said the SEC’s letter. The SEC doesn’t object to the deadline extension request, but believes those “funding and representation issues are unlikely to resolve” within the requested 10-day extension period “based on information recently disclosed,” said the letter. Resolution of the funding issues is “contingent” on the release of funds by a Nigerian bank, but the bank “has restricted access to the accounts after learning of this action,” it said. The SEC “stands ready” to proceed with this enforcement action and believes there’s “a compelling public interest in moving this case towards resolution of both the preliminary and final relief requested,” said the letter. The defendants’ inability to confer on a discovery plan and a preliminary injunction hearing schedule has delayed the SEC’s efforts to “expeditiously litigate its claims,” it said. In light of the SEC’s belief that resolution of the defendants’ funding issues won’t be “resolved imminently,” the SEC has advised the defendants that it won’t agree to further extension requests, it said.