Chris Cleverly

Christopher John Cleverly (born 27 July 1967) is a British lawyer, entrepreneur, philanthropist and businessman. A barrister and past Channel 4 TV presenter, he has been involved with ventures in Africa, including the Made in Africa Foundation, AIM-listed African Potash, and Agri-Fintech Holdings, the main shareholder in Nasdaq-listed Tingo Group, a company implicated in US fraud allegations in late 2023.

He is a cousin of James Cleverly MP, the UK Home Secretary.

Cleverly was born in Essex, United Kingdom, in July 1967. He holds an LL.B. from King's College London (1988) and an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Reading (2014).

Cleverly's cousin is British politician James Cleverly, the Conservative MP for Braintree and, since 13 November 2023, UK Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Cleverley was called to the bar in 1990. He was the youngest head of barrister's chambers while at Trafalgar Chambers (1999). He is today a practising barrister with Millennium Chambers in London.

During the 1990s, Chris Cleverly presented on Channel 4 and contributed to other television channels, radio and newspapers.

In 2005, with British designer Ozwald Boateng and a Ugandan prince, Hassan Kimbugwe, Cleverly co-founded a business, Made in Africa. In 2007, for Made in Africa, Cleverly wrote a speech, “The Tipping Point,” delivered by civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, at the African Union summit. The Made In Africa Foundation was established in 2011 (and incorporated in the UK in March 2012) by Boateng, Nigerian businessman Kola Aluko and Nigeria-based oil and gas company Atlantic Energy to support transformational and large scale African developments and infrastructure projects. Cleverly was CEO of the Foundation, and oversaw day-to-day operations; Boateng and Aluko were trustees and Atlantic Energy executive Dayo Okusami was a director of the foundation.

The Made in Africa Foundation aimed to assist in raising foreign investment and greater public awareness, and, with Emmanuel Mbi, COO of the African Development Bank, Cleverly launched the $1.5bn “Africa50” fund in conjunction with the AfDB on 14 June 2013; the fund was then formally launched at Nasdaq on 30 September 2013.

Later described by The Times as a someone "who ... has skipped from venture to venture with little apparent success", Cleverly joined AIM-listed African Potash as its chairman in 2015. In the same time period, Peter Hain and Mark Simmonds also joined as directors. African Potash was developing the Lac Dinga potash project in the Republic of Congo. However, the business collapsed in value and was delisted from AIM. Later renamed Block Commodities it then focused on blockchain technology in 2018. In 2019, Block Commodities was licensed to grow and import medicinal cannabis, striking deals to buy land in Sierra Leone. However, the deals then collapsed, Cleverly stepped down as chair, and the firm's shares were suspended.

Also in 2019, Cleverly, then a partner at private equity firm PAI Capital, led a bid to buy West Ham United Football Club.

Tingo

Cleverly is a director and the president of a publicly listed US corporation, Agri-Fintech Holdings, Inc (from August 2021 until April 2023, Tingo, Inc), a Nigeria-based agri-fintech company, which is a holding company and, with a 19.41% holding, the largest shareholder in Nasdaq-listed Tingo Group, Inc. Dozy Mmobuosi was the founder and CEO of Tingo Mobile which was acquired by Agri-Fintech Holdings Inc. Goodluck Jonathan, former president of Nigeria, and Olusegun Olutoyin Aganga, former Nigerian minister for Trade, Industry and Investment were on the board of Tingo as of June 2020, prior to Cleverly joining. Cleverly was appointed president in August 2021 following acquisition of Tingo Mobile by the publicly listed US corporation.

In June 2023, shares in Tingo Group plunged in value after a report from short seller Hindenburg Research said the company was an "exceptionally obvious scam". The company denied the Hindenburg report claims, which it said contained "errors of fact" and "misleading and libellous content", and appointed lawyers White & Case to review the report's claims.

On 13 November 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission halted trading in Tingo Group shares and those of related entity Agri-Fintech Securities after finding inaccuracies in their disclosures. The SEC asserted there were "questions and concerns regarding the adequacy and accuracy of publicly available information in the marketplace ... since at least May 10, 2022, about the financial statements and business operations of Tingo Group and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, including Tingo Mobile Ltd," and "since at least February 9, 2023, about the financial statements and business operations of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Tingo Foods PLC."

On 18 December 2023, the SEC announced charges against Mmobuosi and three US-based entities: Tingo Group Inc, Agri-Fintech Holdings Inc and Tingo International Holdings Inc, alleging fraudulent financial claims to defraud investors. "Tingo Mobile is a fiction,” the SEC said. “Its purported assets, revenues, expenses, customers and suppliers are virtually entirely fabricated." As an example, the SEC said Tingo Group's fiscal year 2022 Form 10-K reported a balance of $461.7m in various bank accounts while allegedly only having a combined balance of less than $50 at the end of the year; the SEC's 72-page complaint outlines allegedly fraudulent transactions involving Tingo Mobile in December 2022 and Tingo Foods in February 2023. Auditor Deloitte had given the firm a clean, unqualified audit for its 2022 accounts, leading Hindenburg to question if Deloitte had "missed or rushed through procedures". Sir David Trippier is a director of Tingo and Chair of its Audit Committee.

On 2 January 2024, Mmobuosi was charged with securities fraud, making false filings with the SEC, and conspiracy charges. The charges allege that from at least in or about 2019 through in or about 2023, that Mmobuosi orchestrated a scheme to enrich himself by falsely representing that the Nigerian companies he founded, Tingo Mobile and Tingo Foods, were operational, profitable businesses generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue respectively.

Cleverly is a member of the International Tribunal for Natural Justice, which holds hearings on issues which it claims are being ignored by governments, giving "publicity to discredited medical professionals or conspiracy theorists." In 2019, at an ITNJ hearing, he publicly questioned the safety of 5G.

A portrait of Cleverly is in the National Portrait Gallery collection.