Travevo Consulting Limited, a Lagos-based travel and migration agency, has dragged Smart Flights Partners Limited (SFPL) and its managing director, Mr. Alexander Anyanwu, to court over allegations of obtaining money by false pretense, fraud, and cheating.
According to court filings, Travevo said it engaged SFPL in July 2022 to secure job opportunities and Certificates of Sponsorship (COS) in the United Kingdom (UK) for fourteen of its clients and their dependents. The firm alleges that it paid a total of N33,377,000 to SFPL in installments but later discovered that the COS documents provided were fake and subsequently rejected by the UK Embassy.
Travevo further alleges that the supposed UK employers linked to the sponsorships denied ever hiring or processing visas for Nigerian applicants under the arrangement. The agency also accuses Mr. Anyanwu of refusing to refund the contract sum, offering instead to return a partial amount, which Travevo rejected.
The petitioner additionally claimed that in 2022, after the matter was first reported to the police, Mr. Anyanwu signed an agreement to refund the money in installments but failed to remit a single payment. Instead, after he left the police station, he reportedly went on to file a fundamental human rights action, accusing both the petitioner and the police of conniving to torture him to the point that he fell ill and required medical treatment.
The petitioner alleged that Mr. Anyanwu claimed he was humiliated during police questioning and also contacted the Commissioner of Police upon arrival at the station. According to the CEO of Travevo, Anyanwu was never even placed behind the counter but sat in an office throughout the time spent at the police station to elicit the agreement to pay the money in question.
The human rights case reportedly lasted two months in court before it was struck out, with the judge awarding N500,000 in favor of the petitioner.
The petitioner also alleged that Mr. Anyanwu subsequently filed cases in Owerri, Imo State and Uyo in Akwa-Ibom State, purportedly as a tactic to frustrate her with travel and legal expenses. She explained that her lawyer, who is based in Calabar, had to fly to Owerri and Uyo several times for hearings, only to discover that the courts either adjourned or did not sit on those days.
To date, Travevo Consulting claims that over N41million remains unrefunded by Mr. Anyanwu and Smart Flights Partners, insisting that not even one thousand naira has been returned despite several engagements and court proceedings.
The petition, now before the courts, requests that the defendants be compelled to refund the full amount and face prosecution under relevant provisions of the Criminal Law of Lagos State and the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act.
At the time Mr. Anyawu was contacted by our correspondent, he stated that he could not give any comment because, the matter was already in court.
”If you understand how this is done, you will know that I cannot give any comment because the matter is already in court”, he said
