The Executive Vice Chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mr Babatunde Irukera, disclosed that he led a team of investigators and enforcement officers to nab alleged operators of illegal online lending and reputation-damaging loan recovery platforms on Friday, 11th March.
The FCCPC carried out this operation alongside the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
It was also gathered that the operation was mostly targeted at the businesses that were located in Lagos as Mr Babatunde revealed that some of these illegal lenders were located in Ikeja Lagos. The illegal lenders include: GoCash, Easy Credit, Speedy Choice, Kash Kash, Easy Moni, Sokoloan and All Cash.
Babatunde also revealed that his team resorted to using force to gain access to Sokoloan who refused to let the agency enter its offices which is stretched to two floors at an office building 21 Opebi Road. The chairman also disclosed that the business has over 5,000 employees who received nothing less than N50,000 monthly.
Investors King also gathered that the FCCPC had been gathering information about these illegal lenders as far back as the 2020 lockdown when the novel Coronavirus peaked globally.
Speaking about the raid, the FCCPC vice-chairman said: “Sometime at the end of last year after gathering quite some information, the FCCPC engaged other agencies including the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), ICPC, National Human Right Commission, Central Bank of Nigeria, and Nigerian Communications Commission, to create a joint regulatory task force to look into these businesses. The key two things that were subject of concern, were, what seemed to be naming and shaming or violation of people’s privacy with respect to how these lenders recover the loans.
The vice-chairman also spoke about how these lenders have disregarded people’s privacy when they are trying to recover loans.
Speaking to newsmen, he said: “Secondly sometimes the interest factor, and the way it was calculated, showed the violation of ethical principles of lending. So we started an investigation trying to determine the location of these people but that has been a very difficult thing. We did that for several months and some of them have moved from one place to the other and we have to do reconnaissance on this place almost on a daily basis for months. We also found out that many of these companies are not Nigerian companies, they don’t have an address in Nigeria and they are not registered in Nigeria with the Corporate Affairs Commission and they do not have any license to do their business.
“Essentially what they have is an App, and so we started gathering more information, we engaged the public and people who have been their victims for information. And as we got more information we had enough to present to the court to convince the court to issue a warrant for us to proceed with an investigation into a search and seizure. Late last month, a court issued a warrant, and between then and now we were preparing a sting operation which you are seeing today because we wanted to be sure that we are hitting at the place where we are going to get many of them.”
Babatunde also revealed that they have also filed a petition to Google Play Store and Apple App Store to discontinue the Apps of these businesses from their stores to avoid more victims.