Hindenburg Founder Warned Deloitte 11 Times In 5 Months About Tingo's "Massive Fraud" Before SEC, DOJ Action
As we wrote back in December, the SEC charged publicly listed company Tingo Group, a Nigerian "agri-fintech" company with "massive fraud", claiming that almost every aspect of the company - including its partners and its financials - was fabricated. Short seller Hindenburg Research had written about the company on June 6, calling it "an exceptionally obvious scam with completely fabricated financials".
In a not-so-surprising development, the Department of Justice joined the party earlier this month, charging the company's founder and former CEO, Dozy Mmobuosi, with securities fraud, making false filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and conspiracy charges.
"Mmobuosi spearheaded a scheme to fabricate financial statements and other documents of the three entities, Tingo Group Inc., Agri-Fintech Holdings Inc., and Tingo International Holdings Inc. and their Nigerian operating subsidiaries," the SEC wrote in a release last month.
But in a slightly more surprising development, yesterday the short seller who originally pointed out concerns with Tingo released a tranche of 11 emails it had sent to Tingo's auditor, Deloitte, warning them about potential fraud at Tingo.
"Today, we are releasing 11 emails we sent to Deloitte's senior leaders, spanning nearly 5 months, that documented flagrant signs of fraud at Tingo Group, one of the most spectacular Big 4 audit failures of our time," Hindenburg Research founder Nathan Anderson wrote on X yesterday.
"Our letters pointed this out clearly and repeatedly, but Deloitte stood by and failed to act despite being presented with overwhelming evidence," he continued.
He then linked to all 11 emails which show Hindenburg clearly putting numerous people with Deloitte e-mail addresses on notice about Tingo. Anderson wrote in one email to the auditor:
As Warren Buffett once said: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.” Deloitte has an otherwise strong global reputation that it has earned through decades of difficult audit work—we hope to see the firm continue to protect its brand. We think this should have been obvious months ago, but better late than never.
'Deloitte’s audit work is meant to provide foundational comfort to investors that a company’s financial statements can be trusted. It is meant to be an investor’s first line of defense, yet Deloitte is tracking to be dead last in recognizing the issues at Tingo," he added.
"The lack of action by Deloitte in the face of overwhelming evidence has maximized the harm to prospective investors that continue to believe in Tingo’s obviously false financial statements."
Today, we @HindenburgRes are releasing 11 emails we sent to Deloitte's senior leaders, spanning nearly 5 months, that documented flagrant signs of fraud at Tingo Group, one of the most spectacular Big 4 audit failures of our time.
— Nate Anderson (@NateHindenburg) January 10, 2024
Most companies committing fraud engage in a…
"I am following up with new evidence that Deloitte Israel’s audit client, Tingo Group, continues to exhibit glaring red flags indicating that it has fabricated its financials," Anderson wrote in one email back in September 2023, while Tingo was still trading.
Then, weeks before Tingo shares were halted, Anderson wrote, alongside of compiled evidence of fraud: "Everything we have written to date is easily verifiable with the links made accessible in this series of salty emails. All of the above is easily verifiable through government and company provided data. Once again, despite the overwhelming evidence, Deloitte continues to stand behind the company’s crystal-clear lies in one of the worst displays of auditor gross negligence we have witnessed."