The last message BLQ Football Club posted on Twitter on October 12, at 11:54pm, simply read: “I’m Out!” It was accompanied by a peace emoji. There was, however, nothing peaceful about its users in Uganda losing an estimated figure believed to have breached the Shs60 billion mark.
Yet one of the scam leaders had the audacity to tell victims of the pyramid-cum-Ponzi scheme on the social media app, Telegram thus: “You Ugandans thank you, you have been fooled but I am coming with another trick after this money is over.”
The return of such scammers cannot be ruled out as Uganda has for more than two decades played host to classic Ponzi schemes built on treachery and lies. Scammers always come back and find a willing population ready to be duped of billions of shillings. The efforts of the authorities to crack down on the scammers have also been wanting, with many of the perpetrators simply getting away with it.
Most of the victims are desperate given the high unemployment in the country, while many high net worth individuals also engage in the scams given their high appetite for risk.
Monitor spoke to a female victim, who had put about Shs500,000 in the BLQ Football Club scheme. She joined the Ponzi scheme a few weeks before it shut shop. Evidently sad, the woman, who identified herself as Birungo told us that she was simply looking for more opportunities to make money. The risk, she added, was in joining late or staying for too long.
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