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A company called ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ offered users investments in solar power in December and January, promising huge payouts. But one of our observers in Gabon quickly realized it was a scam and tried to warn others. The international company Sonnedix, active in 10 companies, denied having operations in Gabon. And the so-called ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ disappeared without a trace on January 10, surprising those who had invested.
“‘Sonnedix Gabon’ company is on your side for shared prosperity”, “Join the ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ community to earn a safe and honest living” and “Trusting Sonnedix is trusting wealth!” This was what was written on the ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ Facebook page.
The company billed itself as a solar power provider that offers “users around the world a profitable and secure investment opportunity.” It also posed as a subsidiary of the real UK-based Sonnedix group, by using the company’s logo and listing its website as ‘www.Sonnedix.com/fr’.
The real company ‘Sonnedix’ released a statement on December 28, in which it explained that it had no subsidiaries in Africa and stated that it would never ask for money or personal information. But this did not stop the ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ Facebook page from continuing to promote their activities.
Indeed, ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ was a real company, which had been legally registered with the Gabonese authorities since November 10, 2022; I even had an official document thanks to this record. The authorities confirmed the authenticity of this document, specifying at the same time that the company was not allowed to propose to its clients that they invest in its activities.
‘Sonnedix Gabon’ is a clear example of a Ponzi scheme, that is, a fraud in which the interests of investors’ money are paid mainly with the money contributed by new clients. This system collapses when there are no more new investors.
For ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ everything ended on the night of January 10th. The company removed its Facebook page and the main administrators disappeared. Unable to withdraw their money, some victims decided to go to the Sonnedix offices in the Gabonese capital
It is not known exactly how many people were scammed. ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ claimed to have 100,000 members, a figure probably exaggerated. There were almost 1,000 people in the WhatsApp groups created by ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ to be in contact with investors, and several hundred followed their Facebook page.
After being contacted by our team, the Gabonese Ministry of Economy published a statement confirming that ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ did not have a duly established agreement to carry out banking activities and invited the victims to file a complaint.
It is not the first time that a case of this type has occurred in Gabon. In the summer of 2022, the company JDS Technologies scammed thousands of Gabonese using the same method.
In this episode of The Observers, we look at how ‘Sonnedix Gabon’ managed to convince investors that it was a real company. And how our observer Boursier Tchibinda was able to discover the scam.
