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Controversial businessman and owner of Kenyan premier league side Wazito FC, Ricardo Badoer, has been accused of defrauding unsuspecting investors of more than $140 million in a cryptocurrency-related scam, local news sources reported.
The tycoon was accused of perpetrating the crime through one of his platforms — Aidos Kuneen cryptocurrency — which claims to be a decentralized, scalable and quantum secure system for transferring value with zero fees.
The allegations came after some investors in the platform complained that the businessman refused to release their assets. They claimed that the tycoon was working together with former General Service Unit police officer Paul Kaikai to threaten them from speaking up.
In addition, the Dubai-based businessman allegedly blocked investors from inquiring about their money on social media.
An anonymous source quoted on Blockchain Times said: “Most of the investors are Japanese. He has withheld their assets and blocks anyone on Twitter or Aidos Market Telegram who asks about their money.”
Some investors think the delay in their payments is a desperate face-saving strategy adopted by the tycoon to savage his crumbling cryptocurrency project.
Meanwhile, another online media outlet, Kahawa Tungu, claims to have highly classified information about Badoer. It further added that: “The frustrated investors are [now] in the processing of trying to contact the Central Bank of Kenya and Sumac Microfinance Bank where he [Badoer] holds shareholding to raise-alarm and possibly get him sanctioned.”
Badoer is a shrewd businessman with diversified business interests. He is a majority shareholder in the Sumac and Hakika Microfinance Banks in Kenya and Tanzania.
He is also the founder of Badoer Investment Limited and Aidos Kuneen.
He is an avid football lover and the owner of two football clubs, Wazito FC and the Spanish fifth-tier side, C.D Ursaria F.C.
Earlier in April, the controversial Swedish investor was accused of owing players and staff at Wazito FC three months’ salary. He later claimed to have paid the arrears and blamed a breakdown in the bank transfer system as the cause of the delay.
