N150m Fraud Rocks BRILA FM As Some Ex-Staffers Launch Attacks On Larry Izamoje

FUNSHO AROGUNDADE

BRILA Media, owners of Nigeria’s leading sports radio network, has uncovered a huge fraud allegedly perpetrated by some staff and its former employees running to N150 million (One Hundred and Fifty Million Naira).

P.M.EXPRESS gathered that the Sports radio management recently discovered the criminal diversion of those funds by those few individuals who allegedly established a similar company to manipulate the internal system through invoice fabrication and receival of payments leading to the loss of over N150 million over the last couple of years.

Debbie Larry-Izamoje, Brila Media Group CEO told our Correspondent that the alleged heist was uncovered in June while the management set up an internal investigation that later unraveled the criminal activities leading to the matter being referred to the appropriate authority in August.

She disclosed that while the management has initially decided to handle the matter without any undue publicity by allowing the security operatives to carry out their thorough investigation to identify the culprits and not punish any innocent staffer, some individuals within and outside the organization —in the last two months— have launched a series of digital attacks and blackmail on the Media Group and its founder, Dr. Larry Izamoje.

Her words; “In the past few weeks, we have observed and endured an ill-intentioned and orchestrated campaign of calumny by a few individuals who have been found to be engaged in certain criminal activities during their engagement with our organization spanning years.

“Sequel to the discovery of criminal diversion of funds, pass-off, invoice fabrication, receival of payments, and system manipulation leading to the loss of over N150,000,000 (One Hundred and Fifty Million Naira) over the last couple of years, the matter was referred to the appropriate authority.

“Subsequently, suspects have been invited by law enforcement agents, interrogated, and confessions made. Surprisingly, some of the key actors connected to these devious and insidious activities have been engaged in digital vilification, orchestrating netizen mobs against our organization and founder Dr. Larry Izamoje in order to blackmail the company and project it as insensitive and anti-employee.

“This appears to be a defensive effort to mitigate their criminal exposure in order to escape justice. We have endured their unjustifiable malicious and digital excoriation in the past few weeks as a law-abiding organization to allow the appropriate authority to conclude their findings. We aligned with the rule of law to ensure that justice is done and no innocent person is punished unjustifiably.

“Where necessary, the indicted members of the criminal gang will be revealed as soon as it is appropriate to do so. As a premium and dedicated media organization, we remain committed to professionalism, corporate governance, and value creation that benefits our stakeholders, including our employees. However, criminality will not be condoned no matter the effort those involved put into adverse campaigns against our organization,” she stated.

According to Ms. Larry-Izamoje, the organization has been a responsible corporate entity with none of the staff owed salaries nor any of their entitlement. But they have to dispel the concocted and falsified stories being traded on social media for face-saving by some allegedly indicted in the fleecing of the company of such a humongous amount of money.

She revealed that despite the social media blackmail by some of the indicted staffers, some have confessed to the crime with pledges to make restitution back to the company, the investigation still ongoing as some indicted members of the syndicate yet to make themselves available for interrogation.

The Brila Media Group CEO pledged to reveal further details of the case when appropriate and ensure justice is served.

Larry Izamoje, the brilliant, hardworking and conscientious founder of Brila Media Group has come a long way having been on the beat for over three decades. From Concord Newspapers to when he started his independent sports radio programme on OGBC, to the setting up of Brilla Sports Radio Network, Izamoje —then known as Larry Echiejele— has truly paid his dues.

Along the line, he has helped a number of young people in his station to excel. Yet, some members of his organization have allegedly fleeced him of about N150 million.