Cameroonian Lawyer detained: Yellow Card seeks intervention of Ambassador as clients accuse US fintech of ‘confiscating money’

By Nfor Hanson Nchanji

On December 18, 2023, Barrister Jonie Banyong Fonyam, Jr., the lawyer of Yellow Card companies in Cameroon owned by Yellow Card’s Co-Founder and CEO, a U.S. citizen (Yellow Card Cameroon Ltd and Backendtech Cameroon Ltd), was arrested and detained at the Judicial Police in Bonanjo, Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital. On December 27, he was taken to the region’s maximum prison in Newbell.

His detention is because of money the company, Yellow Card Cameroon took from two partners, Societe BOSECX FX LTD and Fon Tifuh FG Enterprises, companies owned respectively by Sebastien Bodang and Cedric Tifuh Fon.

Yellow Card is a Fintech company that sells Dollars, Bitcoins, and USDT.

According to information revealed by the General Counsel of Yellow Card Financial Inc., in a letter written to the US Ambassador to Cameroon on December 28, 2023 (which CNA has a copy of) the two companies engaged in business with Yellow Card since 2021, but “failed to pay Yellow Card all amounts agreed pursuant to those transactions”.

The General Counsel continued that, the detention of their legal representative in Cameroon who doubled as a minority shareholder and director of the two companies in Cameroon was illegally detained and that the justice system has paid no attention to calls from members of the Cameroon Bar nor calls from the Lawyer of Barrister Jonie Fonyam for the case to be held in a Civil Court.

Bar members protested but Barrister Fonyam has remained in custody since December 18, 2023.

“Many convocations, some beginning at 9 pm and lasting until 2 am, were held attempting to persuade Mr. Fonyam to sign untrue statements under duress. It is inconceivable that Mr. Fonyam has been unable to secure release on bail even though the alleged crimes he is charged with, having no basis in fact, are bailable offenses. Mr. Fonyam is a member of the Cameroonian Bar without a criminal record or any prior charges against him. Despite a ground-swell of protests at the treatment of Mr. Fonyam by members of the Cameroonian Bar, Procurator General Foe has refused to meet with members of the Cameroonian Bar to discuss Mr. Fonyam’s unlawful detention.” Craig Stoehr decried.

Cameroon News Agency’s investigations show that on October 17, 2023, Yellow Card’s legal representative and Manager in Cameroon, Jonie Fonyam, reached out to the two partners and requested the sum of FCFA 515, 250,000 CFA (Five hundred and fifteen million, two hundred and fifty thousand francs), promising the clients that they will be given US Dollars equivalent to the amount. But when they received the money, they allegedly transferred it out of Cameroon and never fulfilled their promises.

In his letter to the US Ambassador to Cameroon, Yellow Card’s General Counsel said the two clients owed the company which is why they will not be paid. “Throughout 2021, Messrs. Bodang and Tifuh Fon (through their respective companies) entered into transactions with Yellow Card and failed to pay Yellow Card all amounts agreed pursuant to those transactions. In October 2023, Yellow Card legally offset these debts from funds received by Messrs. Bodang and Tifuh Fon (through their respective companies). He wrote.

However, the two partners, Sebastien Bodang and Cedric Tifuh Fon said they do not recognize the debts claimed by Yellow Card because they carried out all transactions with due diligence and fulfilled every deal they had with the former Manager of Yellow Card Cameroon.

Our investigations revealed that the present Yellow Card’s management in Cameroon refused to give the US dollars to the partners because of money they claimed was owed when the former Yellow Card’s Manager and shareholder, Ndikombui Nigel Mingoh was on the seat. But his contract was terminated more than a year ago.

In his letter to the US Ambassador, Yellow Card’s General Counsel did not mention the fact that the two clients, Sebastien Bodang and Cedric Tifuh Fon, had insisted that they should also discuss with their former country Manager, whom they claimed had collected all money from them without recording any debts.

“The truth is this company is doing injustice and scam against faithful customers instead of holding their former manager whom they separated with him with a termination document.” Cedric Tifuh Fon, who is claiming more than FCFA 170 million from Yellow Card told CNA.

He wondered how they would owe the company when “the company never sells on credit! The company never sells on credit, you must pay the money and they receive it before they pay you.”

“When this company lured us on the 17 October that we should send them money, we did and they confiscated it and they are now refusing to settle the trade on the pretext that we owe them in 2021, we said how can we owe you that you never sell on credit. They said they never received some money that was paid in cash to the former Manager… they even highlighted Mobile Money transactions of FCFA 27 million which I sent to them and when I went to MTN they saw the transaction and said they had seen the money but until now, they have not refunded the FCFA 27 million”. Cedric Tifuh Fon revealed.

Mr. Fon also revealed that they arrested the former Manager, Ndikombui Nigel Mingoh, who gave his statement to the judicial police and recited the same thing when the partners pay money, Yellow Card checks their system before crediting them. He even showed evidence of USD 35,000 that he was paid for settlement before his departure.

Yellow Card allegedly refused to show up after three summonses, before they arrested the country Manager, Barrister Jonie Fonyam- CNA gathered.  

The American company recommended that if necessary, the matter should be solved by Arbitration out of Cameroon, “In addition to being willing to abide by the normal civil court process and ultimate judgment in Cameroon, Yellow Card has offered Messrs. Bodang and Tifuh Fon, through their lawyer, Mr. Gilbert Bongam, to submit the dispute to arbitration with the International Chamber of Commerce, London Court of International Arbitration, or the Dubai Court of International Arbitration, in a neutral forum (eg, Paris, Switzerland, London, Dubai, etc.). Yellow Card has also offered to deposit in escrow with any such arbitration tribunal the total amount of monies claimed by Messrs. Bodang and Tifuh Fon (an amount approaching $1 million) so that if they are successful in prosecuting their claim, the monies will be released to them immediately.”

The Lawyer of the defendant, Barrister Fey FC insisted that the said amount paid in cash cannot be recognized by Yellow Card as the clients even failed to produce any receipt to show that they paid money in cash.

He revealed that the two clients received US dollars from Yellow Card and Yellow Card investigated their accounts and could not see the FCFA equivalent-so they told Yellow Card that they paid the money in cash to Manager Nigel (three and five installments)

He also added that the former Manager made a statement “that he never received money in cash but when they did confrontations last week, he modified the statement a bit saying if Yellow Card paid them, it means that the money was paid… The fact that there are no receipts, we can logically not agree that he received any money”. Barrister Fey said in a phone interview with Nfor Hanson Nchanji.

One of the clients, Tifuh Fon, said the Lawyer is not well informed because on November 19, 2021, Yellow Card issued a statement, stopping all cash payments, “Their former manager Ndikombui Nigel, asked me to deposit the money to his office for those trades I paid by cash. He instantly there will ask us to write in our trading group that, this amount was deposited. We did and he confirmed that received in the group. they have correspondence behind and confirm the money, then, we were settled and that was over for the trade,” Fon said, providing the reporter with dozens of screenshots showing group chats where the administrators of Yellow Card recognized their deposits.

He continued, “We were there. We left there at 2 am midnight. Yellow Card Lawyers are the ones forcing a wrong narrative as opposed to what Nigel is saying. Nigel told the officer that, Yellow Card was wrong and are criminals to holding our money. He refused the 515, 250,000 frs they confiscated from us on 17/10/2023 because he didn’t receive the money and had long left Yellow Card.”

Release suspending cash payments by Yellow Card.

We reached out to a legal practitioner and neutral observer who has been following the development of the process to comment on the issue and based on anonymity, he said “I feel like Yellow Card as a person or company has something to hide here, they are not being truthful. So, in this case, what needs to happen is that this matter must proceed the way it is going because Yellow Card will have a lot to uncover. It is very sensitive in the sense that Yellow Card has traded on IPO terms without having registered on the US Stock Exchange Market. So now it gives the Securities and Exchange Commission to sue and fine Yellow Card and the person involved in the matter. I think at the end of the day Yellow Card remains the liable person in this matter. Meanwhile, the Attorney who is currently remanded in custody too cannot just be released like that because they involved people’s money which has been deposited and no account can be rendered this far. If Yellow Card feels like they can settle this matter, they need to talk with partners who are involved like the various stakeholders of the justice sector in Cameroon…If they continue to hold that man, Yellow Card will have to release the money to those who have been affected. I think Yellow Card has not been truthful with their dealings and these are the hallmarks of trading securities under American law. And even if Yellow Card claims the former company Manager in which they were involved used to be their partner, but they still remain liable…Yellow Card in this case cannot use legal might to frighten the Cameroon judiciary, I am not talking here just to support my colleague who is in detention…If J.J Fonyam was actually a director for one of these entities, he did not do the right thing, he committed an offense at the Bar, by abrogating the issue of conflict of interest. Article 6 of Cameroon’s internal Bar rules states that for any jobs which you know will have a conflict of interest in practicing at the Bar, you need to write the bar suspending your practice.” He spoke with Nfor Hanson Nchanji on the phone.

Yellow Card is in a Civil Court in Bonanjo, Douala, praying for the appointment of a Commercial Expert to investigate the issue while the appellants are at the Criminal Court to prosecute the defendant. Barrister Fey said they will follow the cases in both Courts but are still open for International Arbitration.

While Barrister Jonie Fonyam is still in jail pending a bail appearance on January 2, 2024.

*CNA also got PDFs of group chats and other documents from clients showing how the flow of information is carried out when they deposit money. This report is an ongoing investigation as details emerge and parties concerned give their okay for interviews or send our newsroom their versions of the story.