DKM Boss fingered in another Ponzi Investment Scheme

Reliable information picked up by SavannahNewsOnline.Com suggest that Chief Executive of defunct DKM Diamond Microfinance Limited, Martin K. Delle, is still bent on causing unimaginable suffering and hardship to unsuspecting investors across the country.

Like DKM Microfinance, Martin Delle is said to have co-founded another Ponzi scheme called ZEN Capital through which dozens of people have allegedly been defrauded of their investments.

The Chief Executive of ZEN Capital, according to his latest victims, has gone into hidding for months now, refusing to pay them what they have invested over a period. His agents, through whom many people invested in the company have also gone into hiding and refusing to answer calls from anyone they suspect is an investor of the company.

It would be recalled that, in 2015, hundreds of people lost their investments which totaled millions of cedis after the Bank of Ghana suspended the operations of DKM Microfinance for violating the Banking Act (673) 2004.

The Bank of Ghana later confiscated all assets of DKM Microfinance and appointed the Registrar General’s Department as the official liquidator to start the process to pay back customers their investments.

According to a Ghanaweb.com report on Friday, March 2019, the Ministry of Finance said the liquidator received a total of 99,858 claims which amounted to some Gh₵502 million cedis.

As at November 2018, government through Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta announced in the 2019 budget to parliament that 80 percent of those claims had been paid whereas funds were set aside at the Bank of Ghana to pay the remaining 20 percent of customers upon validation.

But even before Ghanaians forget this fraudulent scandal that hit the nation’s financial sector particularly the Bank of Ghana and the Securities and Exchange Commission for their weak regulation at the time, Martin Delle who was never punished for his actions after he was arrested has found it good to continue to do Ponzi scheme business.

Prominent people including those of his family bearing the name Delle are reportedly not happy with his behaviour because they feel he is soiling the whole family’s reputation. For instance, this reporter gathered that some natives of Nandom in the Upper West Region who invested in ZEN Capital and are finding it difficult to get back their money decided to seek the help of their Member of Parliament, Lawyer Ambrose Dery to intervene and get Martin Delle to pay them. But since this is not his “job”, the MP is reported to have asked his constituents to report the matter to the police.

Customers Reaction

With investment in oil and gas, automobile and transport among others, Martin Delle is one of three shareholders of ZEN Capital according to one of the clients. “Martin Delle owns 20 percent shares in ZEN. One Dr. Dunu, a native of Bolgatanga and university lecturer in the UK owns 50 percent whiles Mr. Mahindra, an Indian software engineer based in Ghana also owns 30 percent shares”, Augustine told SavannahNewsOnline.Com in a written statement explaining how he became a customer of the company.

He further narrated, “I was one of the victims of DKM bruhaha and to date, I have not received money even though we heard that customers are being paid. In 2018 I saw ZEN Capital on Facebook which was into investment. I did my own checks on their website and was convinced to invest in the company. I did my first investment (Gh₵2,000.00) and it was successful. I introduced friends and colleagues at my workplace. As at the time I did the investment the company was running a promotion and I was one of the customers which won the promotion so I decided to go to Accra and collect my item. When I got to their office, I met Julius Koya at the office and at that moment I was happy because at least someone I know is part of the company. I chat him and asked him to introduce the investment product to the Taxi driver who took me there. Some few minutes later, Martin K. Delle came in, I was very excited to see my brother and he asked me to follow him to his office and I did. In his office I got to know that he was the CEO of ZEN Capital, at that particular moment I didn’t know what to do, I was more than excited for the young man who with all the odds was rising up again. We had a healthy chat and I urged him to be more careful…… There was a time when I was to attend a meeting with the sales agents of ZEN Capital. The meeting was to make the sales agents believe and trust that the company was a sustainable one and has a future. At this meeting, the sale agents were made to understand that the company has been registered with the Security and Exchange Commission, the Registrar General and other institutions that matters. Martin K. Delle said all these agencies, paperwork was done 90% hence there were no fears. They made mention of Vanguard Insurance being the insurer of ZEN Capital per what he experienced with DKM. He doesn’t want such an incident to happen again where people will lose their money. Everyone who was at the meeting was excited to see him coming to the limelight again not knowing that Martin K DELLE was planning to use innocent people for his parochial interest by robbing and duping people from their hard-earned money. A True son of Nandom will not do what Martin K. DELLE is going doing by scamming people to be rich”, he lamented.

A teacher in the Brong Ahafo Region who did not want his name to be mentioned said he also invested Gh₵85,000.00 on June 29, 2018, after his brother forwarded a promotion that ZEN Capital was running to him via whatsapp.

“I got to know about ZEN Capital through a brother. He sent me a promo that the company was running to me via whatsapp and I thought it was good. So I invested Gh₵85,000.00 and I was given a Hyundai i10 car as a prize. In fact, my personal money was Gh₵83,000.00 in addition to a loan of Gh₵2,000.00. The maturity period for the investment was three months with a return of 24 percent of your initial capital investment. After the three months period on September 29, 2018, I traveled to ZEN office in Accra to pick up my cheque. I returned to my base and went to a Ghana Commercial Bank in Wenchi to cash out my money only to be told that the cheque was a dud cheque. In fact, I almost collapse my brother when the bank people told me it was a dud cheque”, he disclosed.

He continued: “I quickly rushed back to Accra and asked Martin why he deceived me with a dud cheque. He started pleading profusely. He explained that he invested the money and the investment got burst and so I should exercise patience he’ll pay me Gh₵50,000.00 and later pay the rest. One of his agents called Julius Dery and his Managing Director one Sheriff pleaded with me. The Gh₵50,000 was never paid. He paid me only Gh₵20,000.00 later on and till now when you call him he’ll never answer. You text him, he won’t answer. He is nowhere to be found as I speak with you on this matter. I reported him to EOCO, they took my statement. Some aggrieved customers and agents of ZEN Capital were also invited by EOCO but since then, about nine months ago, we haven’t heard anything from EOCO”, he lamented.

Mr. Isidore, an officer of one of the state security agencies in Sunyani is also a victim. After his initial investment of Gh₵2,000.00, he got Gh₵500.00 as interest. According to him, he topped up his principal with Gh₵500.00 and added the interest for another round of investment after he was told that the interest has increased from 24 to 28 percent.

“We keep getting assurances from them that we’ll be paid but nothing is happening. One Fouzia who works in the ZEN office says she can’t even go home because she convinced her family members to invest and now their money is locked up. One Paul Delle, a family member of Martin Delle introduced this thing to me. Initially, I was worried because I have been a victim of DKM before and I didn’t want to put my money where I wouldn’t get it back but he managed to convince me to invest”, he recounted.

Paul, an agent of ZEN Capital when contacted expressed serious concern over the long silence and failure by the management of the company to honour their numerous assurances to customers.

From the interview he granted this news portal, it was clear from his voice that he had regretted recommending the company to people to invest in saying “anytime someone calls me for updates on their investment and payment schedules I don’t just know what to tell them”.

Paul, who equally invested in the company said his money, over Gh₵10,000.00, was locked up and he did not know when or whether at all he and others would ever get their money back. “Things are really difficult. My wife just delivered through cesarean section. Children’s school fees and myself I’m schooling and I don’t know where to get money from. Many others are in my situation. I know people who invested Gh₵,100,000.00, Gh₵200,000.00, Gh₵300,000.00 and so on. A friend of mine took a loan and invested. He was schooling and now he has stopped because things are difficult”, he revealed.

Martin Delle has refused to answer calls placed to him to get his response on this development. He has also refused to acknowledge receipt of our whatsapp message requesting to have an interview with him.

ZEN Capital MD’s Audio

Former managing director of ZEN Capital by name Sherrif Gally who designed everything about the company including its website and system is also out of reach as his phone has been off.

But an audio recording in possession of SavannahNewsOnline.Com in which he is proving his innocence over claims circulating in the public domain particularly among customers of ZEN Capital that he defrauded the company and caused its collapse, Sherrif refuted the claims and described them as false accusations being orchestrated by Martin to tarnish his image.

While challenging Martin to caused his arrest if he really thinks he defrauded him and ZEN Capital, he also threatened to “spill the beans” about all the fishy deals he has been doing by using the name of Ambrose Dery and others.

Sherrif according to the audio recording has been reporting to the BNI and EOCO for months now because of the scandal involving ZEN Capital. He said his car has been seized by the BNI and noted that if martin had listened to his advice ZEN Capital would not have been in a mess.

He apologized to all the customers of the company for what they were going through. He added that he resigned from ZEN before problems started.

Registration

SavannahNewsOnline.Com’s search on the portal of the Registrar General’s Department confirmed that ZEN Capital is duly registered as a company limited by shares. Checks at the Securities and Exchange Commission however uncovered that ZEN Capital is not registered with them in any way to do the kind of business they were doing.

Who is Martin K. Delle

Martin K. Delle is a native of Nandom-Pataal. He had his basic and secondary education in Nandom. After completing Nandom Secondary School, he proceeded to the Catholic University College at Fiapre where he graduated with a BSc Economics degree. He also holds an MSc in Economics from California University FCE.

In 2014 while CEO of DKM Microfinance, he was honoured by the National Youth Authority at the 5th edition of the Upper West Youth Achievers’ Awards. He is President of DMM Group. He is married with a child.

For many of his peers, he is an intelligent and hard-working young man. Through him, many young people got jobs to do in his companies just that those jobs never really last.

Unfortunately, the calm and innocent-looking young man who is in his early thirties appears to be completely different when one attempts to match the litany of scandals he has found himself in recently with his demeanor.

Source: pulsenewsgh.com