It’s a lie, says investor over Polish man’s Nigerian ‘Godfather’ blackmail claims [Updated]

UPDATE (18 October 2019): Marek Zmyslowski has released a tell-all book after Interpol in May 2019 took down the Red Notice it issued in January 2018 ordering his extradition to Nigeria (see this story) — Ed

A Polish entrepreneur who claims that his Nigerian business partners tried to blackmail him into paying $300 0000 by using an Interpol arrest, is spinning a lie — says a Nigerian businessman.

It follows Marek Zmyslowski’s post last Thursday (14 February) on Medium that has rocked Nigeria’s tech scene (see this story).

In a post today on Facebook group Silicon Africa, Edmund Diddles — who is none other than Tech Advance founder Edmund Olotu — alleges in a comment (see image below) that the Polish entrepreneur has been telling “a lie” and claims that he has indeed defrauded investors.

It’s not known currently how Olotu is linked to the matter. Olotu declined attempts by Ventureburn to get comment from him, including on how he is linked to this matter. However what is known is Olotu’s current CFO Gulbert Kiros is the former CFO of HotelOga. According to Zmyslowski, Kiros contributed cash of $20 000 to the business, when he accepted the position at HotelOga.

Zmyslowski said it is possible that Olotu was the person who did indeed front Kiros’s contribution. But Zmyslowski says he never dealt with Olotu.

Nigerian businessman claims that claims of Godfather trying to blackmail Polish entrepreneur is a lie.

“Tired of this silly story going round with Marek claiming a Nigerian ‘God father’ was trying to blackmail him to pay money using Interpol. It’s simply a lie,” writes Olotu.

Olotu claims investors were deceived by Zmyslowski into investing in a Nigerian entity without realising that there was also a Polish entity.

Olotu further claims that the Polish entity “literally sucked the life out of the company”. He says Marek then went onto sell both entities without first getting the okay from his investors to do so. In the process, he claims, he lost their money.

Olotu says investors had sought to recover their funds from Zmyslowski and had even informed the buyers that the sale was not authorised by the investors.

‘Fled to Poland’

He says Marek then “fled” to Poland and that the only way to make him respond to the fraud charges was to inform Interpol to put him on a restricted list.

“This is normal practice for international flight risks. He danced and danced around refunding the investors money till date,” he says.

“Now he shows up with the Nigerian messiah bollocks of claiming he was building Nigeria’s Amazon.

“I tried my best to keep quiet… but if it hurts our nascent ecosystem it hurts all of us. And it’s beginning to look like someone is afraid of him. Nobody is. Folks are just trying to face their businesses that supercede the childish whims of a spoilt brat.”

However, Zmyslowski yesterday (17 February) refuted Diddle’s claims.

On his Facebook profile page — where the post was also shared — Zmyslowski says: “Yup, that is the BS story that my investor pushed. It was already debunked by literally every other investor and cofounder, and the court”.

NightsBridge deal

In a blog post yesterday (17 February) Tech blogger Benjamin Dada said Zmyslowski stated in an email dated 5 April 2017, that he would take Hospitality Technology Solutions with him into a different arrangement with a third party, NightsBridge — a SA online distributor for guest houses, boutique hotels and lodges.

Dada writes that he is investigating the transaction “because aggrieved Nigerians are saying they didn’t get a share of the sale from the NightsBridge deal which Marek reportedly did”.

Flutterwave co-founder, Polish man clash

Meanwhile a Twitter war has broken out between Nigerian entrepreneur and former Flutterwave CEO Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Zmyslowski.

In a series of tweets last Saturday (16 February) Aboyeji said Zmyslowski’s claims in his post on Medium would damage the Nigerian tech sector.

In one tweet he said he would speak to the Polish entrepreneur to get him to take down the blog post and “clarify this is not really about Nigeria’s broken justice system but his using investors funds to fund his fast lifestyle.. until this will remain a burning issue”.

This is a developing story.

Read more: How Nigerian business partner tried to bribe, take over my startup – Polish man

Editor’s note (25 February 2019): We changed all references in this story of “Edmund Diddles” (his Facebook name) to “Edmund Olotu”.

It’s not known currently how Olotu, who wrote a revealing blog post on Medium subsequent to this article, of the matter on 21 February, is linked to the matter. Because of this, we have amended the story accordingly. 

Olotu has declined various attempts by Ventureburn to get comment from him, including on how he is linked to this matter. However what is known is Olotu’s current CFO Gulbert Kiros is the former CFO of HotelOga. According to Zmyslowski, Kiros contributed cash of $20 000 to the business, when he accepted the position at HotelOga.

Zmyslowski said it is possible that Olotu was the person who did indeed front Kiros’s contribution. But Zmyslowski says he never dealt with Olotu.

Read more: Marek Zmyslowski releases tell-all book after Interpol drops Nigerian extradition request
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Read more: Who is Marek Zmysłowski, the Polish man Nigerian investors are after?
Read more: Did Polish man accused of defrauding Nigerian investors lie about merger? [Updated]
Read more: Did Polish tech entrepreneur Marek Zmyslowski defraud Nigerian investors?
Read more: How it all went down: a timeline of the HotelOga, Marek Zmyslowski saga
Read more: How Nigerian business partner tried to bribe, take over my startup – Polish man

Featured image: Nigerian businessman Edmund Diddles (Facebook)