More than 5,000 Ugandans have appealed to the country’s Parliament for a refund of the money they invested in Dunamiscoin Resource Ltd., a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme that suddenly shut down late last year.
According to reports from local news media on Friday, the large crowd had requested that they are given their investments on the company, which claimed its mission is to bridge the gaps for the informal sector by providing income for the poor.
Dunamiscoin allegedly received a go-ahead from the government while offering to pay investors between 30% to 40% on their investments within a short period. However, not meeting up to its promises, the firm shut down in December 2019, duping over 10 billion Ugandan shillings ($2.7 million) from thousands of poor victims, Coinfomania reported.
The company, which executed its operation from Feb 2018 to Dec 2019, claimed that its bank account was frozen last year by the Financial Intelligence Authority, thus its inability to repay investors. However, the petitioners were not convinced that the company had such an amount in its frozen account.
In a statement, Arthur Asiimwe, the head of the petitioners revealed that Dunamiscoin got its license from the government as a non-deposit financial institution, yet they operated as a micro-financial company and offered attractive bonuses.
Asiimwe added that only two directors of the company had been arrested, Samson Lwanga and Mary Nabunya. On the other hand, the Managing Director of the company, Susan Awoni, is still at large.
“We are not satisfied with the Police report that they have failed to arrest the third director. We request that the Financial Intelligence Authority follows this up and trace where the money is and we are refunded,” Asiimwe concluded.
In response to the petition, the speaker of the parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, assured them that the appropriate authorities will be brought in to look into the matter and solve the problem.
“Since you petitioned the President already, I will talk to him and invite the Minister of Finance, Uganda MicroFinance Regulatory Authority next week and we can forge a way forward,” she said.
