How Jesam Micheal allegedly scammed thousands of ‘crypto investors’ across the world with the Afriq Arbitrage System

In the second half of 2022, a certain Jesam Micheal, a Nigerian man rumoured to be in his early 40s embarked on a mission to ‘eradicate poverty’ among Nigerians and other people all over the world who cared to believe in his Afriq Arbitrage System (AAS).

Through profits obtained from cryptocurrency arbitrage trading, AAS set out to pay a 63.5% return on investments monthly, and other bonuses on referral to its investors and beneficiaries.

Albeit short-lived, Jesam Micheal’s AAS delivered on a part of his promise to investors. However, what has been established now is that his Afriq Arbitrage System has left them poorer than they were last year before investing.

Jesam Micheal’s AAS Ponzi scheme

A background check showed that Jesam Micheal had been associated with a handful of shady businesses before establishing AAS. Collapsed Ponzi schemes; COTPS and DAIZY AI are some of the shady platforms that Jesam Micheal has promoted previously.

There are even reports that Jesam Michael was the mastermind behind these schemes.

When COTPS shut down in mid-2022, Jesam told people he was going to set up a crypto trading platform. And in the second half of 2022, he started building this new ‘trading platform.’ 

After going on a massive campaign to preach the wealth gospel of the Afriq Arbitrage System between September and December 2022, Jesam Micheal was able to convince substantial investors from all over the world to put money into his pyramid scheme.

Jesam, who is said to reside with his family in Abuja, Nigeria, had online and physical meetings, seminars and hangouts in Nigeria, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Investors said he even had a launch party in New Jersey, in December of the same year.

When it started, Jesam said he was building a platform that trades cryptocurrencies on investors’ behalf and pays them returns on investment. The profits realized were purportedly obtained from price differences (arbitrage) of digital assets across exchanges.

Jesam Micheal’s platform operated a rotational ROI system. 1.65% ROI daily was the minimum for the first 20 days of every month. The system switches to 2% ROI for the next 5 days followed by 3.5% ROI  for the 3 days and 5% ROI for the last 2 days (totalling 63.5% monthly) before reverting back to 1.65% for the first 20 days of the next month.

Read also: 4 ways Africans can monetize Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) and get returns

The minimum deposit on the platform was $20 and the minimum withdrawal was $50. Also, when making withdrawals, the wallet address for deposits usually expires within five minutes. This should have been a red flag for AAS investors but many did not care as long as the 63.5% monthly ROI was intact.

At some point, some investors wrote to Binance to confirm if AAS had a liquidity pool with the world’s largest exchange as it claimed. However, Binance publicly denied any affiliation with Jesam’s AAS. This was another red flag but again, the 63.5% ROI was too juicy to let go.

Jesam claimed his platform was not a Ponzi scheme. Customers were supposed to get 5% on the earnings of referrals, however, there were many times when these bonuses would not reflect. when confronted, Jesam would say the issue would be fixed.

All was going well and smoothly until the 15th of April 2023, when Jesam, during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Facebook, announced that due to massive expansion, he needed to install a new ‘bot’ into the trading platform.

According to his announcement, this upgrade would go on for 30 days, during which the platform would be closed (whereas customers could still make deposits, withdrawals were suspended).

30 days metamorphosed to two months and subsequently rolled into 3 months. It has now been six months since that announcement was made and nobody has been able to withdraw funds from the Afriq Arbitrage System. 

Instead of a withdrawal feature, what investors have gotten from Jesam Micheal since April are what they describe as false stories and fabricated lies. In May, there were reports all over the internet of how he handed over AAS keys to one Abayomi Segun Oluwasesan, a ‘worker’ at the company. Per the reports, Jesam was in the hospital for a liver operation and Abayomi went ahead to unlock the blockchain and steal $87 million.

Technext wrote a fact-check article to counter those claims. We disclosed that the Afriq Arbitrage System was not built on a blockchain in the first place and that the ‘hacking’ incident might just be a scheme to siphon investors’ funds. Four months down the line, those surmises are proving to be true. 

Read the fact-check article here: Afriq Arbitrage System was not built using blockchain technology, here’s how the $87m scam worked

After the spotlight dimmed on the issue and Abayomi was ‘arrested’, Jesam Micheal went back to his community and announced to investors that customers’ capital was not stolen, but ROI was. He promised to pay them gradually but over five months later, withdrawal features have not been enabled. 

On the flip side, Jesam Micheal continues to fly all over the world while posting himself and his luxurious properties. Discussions, questions and enquiries on the platform’s Telegram and Facebook pages are being censored but that does not stop Jesam Michael’s ‘well-wishers’ from singing his adulation all over social media.

Afriq scam took advantage of poverty across the world

Fortunately for him and unfortunately for his investors, Jesam Micheal was able to convince people to believe in his promise of wealth because he was ‘out there.’

According to Mr John based in Abuja who has lost money to the scheme, he and other investors decided to trust and give money to Jesam Micheal because he was someone they could see. 

In his words:

“The reason why I and other people invested was because he came with a face. He was showing himself, posting about his family. People could know who he was, he stayed in Taco, Abuja. He could walk past and people would see him.”

Mr John, who alongside the people he brought into the scheme lost over $10,000, said he came across Jesam Michael twice in Abuja. 

Through the referral of a friend, Mr John joined AAS in February. He started with $1000 and with a return of 65% monthly, he withdrew $1650 just once. According to Mr John, after withdrawing in March and confirming that the platform was ‘real’, he tried to compound his profit by reinvesting capital and profit, until the devil struck around May. 

Now coming to the realization, Mr John says one red flag that could have been noticed initially was how customers did not have access to withdraw at any time despite the fact that Jesam Micheal claimed to have been building a decentralized wallet.

Now full of regret, Mr John says he referred people who invested as much as $5,000 to the platform while some borrowed money in order to join. He said two of the persons he referred tried to counter Jesam Michael on the platform’s Telegram page in July but Jesam punished them by deactivating their accounts, which had over $6,000.

Another victim of the scheme who spoke to us is Jane (not real name), a middle-aged South African woman. Jane, who was referred by a friend in America, also has friends in the United Kingdom and the US, who lost money to Jesam Micheal’s AAS.

According to Jane, Jesam Michael took advantage of people looking for quick returns in the crypto space. In her view, so many people believed in Jesam Michael all because of poverty.

“$20 was the minimum deposit and he promised to make people millionaires at the end of the year. People believed because they were poor.”

Jane remarks that for six months, her withdrawal requests have been rejected. She has not been able to withdraw her money which runs to around $2,000 on two different accounts. 

Where is Jesam Micheal?

He is still on social media, and moving around like a normal person. Our sources say he gained so much influence with his ill-gotten money that he has now become a darling of law enforcement officers who are helping drive the Abayomi blockchain hack narrative.

His latest dance is an AAS Token that he claims would help customers recover their money. According to an announcement on the Telegram group, the continuity of AAS is now dependent on this AAS Token.

AAS Telegram and Facebook groups now have hired praise singers who hail him every day and fight off any dissenting voices. Gullible and unsuspecting people continue to deposit money into his platform while the withdrawal feature is disabled. 

“He says money was stolen and he’s building up the capital with the profit pool from 65% a month to 3.5% a week. If you invest $3k you’re earning $8 a week. There’s an army of people in the group that lie about getting withdrawals out and praise him. If you make a post or ask a question your comment would be deleted. On Facebook pages, he’s showing people he’s trading but all comments are muted. People still deposit on the platform.”  a victim stated.

Also, the Abayomi case is being used to cover the misdeeds. Victims who spoke to us said they visited courts in Abuja on October 9, when Abayomi was supposed to be tried, and there was no such sitting on that day.

In a nutshell, it looks like the blockchain hack incident is a scheme to buy time, so people would eventually give up and move on from their funds. And while working towards that, Jesam Micheal has perfected his branding strategy as more and more people continue to sing his praises on social media. While sources say he is in Canada, he continues to flaunt wealth and other luxury items on social media. The victims of his previous endeavours warn that the AAS token is likely the latest trick from his playbook to collect funds from unsuspecting victims.

We reached out to the Nigeria Police Force for clarification on the Abayomi case but we did not receive any response at the time of this publication.