Our investigations of QZ Assets Management reveal a questionable company with a carefully constructed narrative and an elaborate operation that roped in thousands of unsuspecting investors. The company’s listed directors don’t appear to exist, investors were recruited through videos and influencers, and the documents they used to attract more investment through a planned IPO turned out to be plagiarized.
The allure
Africa’s unemployment crisis has worsened since 2013. One in eight 15-24 year olds are unemployed in 2022 according to data from World Bank, compared to one in ten in 2013. This was partly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Other data from the International Labour Organisation estimates that a quarter of 15-24-year-olds in Sub-Saharan Africa are not in employment, education or training. The result is a lack of opportunities for young Africans, who grow more desperate to make a living, and this opens a window for scammers and other malicious actors to exploit.
On May 7, 2023, a South African Facebook account, by the name Jeniffer Nnana with 7,000 followers shared a now-deleted post with pictures of a woman gleefully holding a cheque worth KSh 1.3 million. In the caption, the user thanked a firm named QZ Assets Management. “Being Recognized And Awarded With $10 089.78,” the caption read, “Ignore QZ Asset Management at your own risk… Joining Team #Success_Academy was the best choice”.
The company credited for the prize is QZ Assets Management (QZAM). On its website, the company proclaims itself as “one of the world’s leading asset managers”, claiming to manage assets worth $8.4 billion as at December 31, 2022. According to the website, the company was founded in 2012 “to help investors make investments in Big Data AI.” The website, complete with a list of strategies and the management staff, contains investment options ranging from $100 to $10,000 assuring up to 400% returns at zero risk.
A Facebook user by the name Kondwani Ziba says that QZ trades are made using “the latest AI trading technology” that ensures consistent returns. “For the past five years, we have never lost a trade,” a QZ official boasted with certitude to a crowd in Namibia.
According to a poster shared by QZAM on Facebook, investors would deposit money and make daily returns way above normal profit margins at a zero percent risk. There was a catch, however. All deposits onto the QZ scheme had to be converted to USDT – a cryptocurrency that is the digital equivalent of the US Dollar, which may have been an effort to remain untraceable.
Nthabiseng Lephoto, a South African who lost KSh 430,208 (60,000 ZAR) to the QZ scam told Piga Firimbi that withdrawals went through smoothly until May 1, 2023. “The platform was so good until QZ stopped withdrawals on the 1st May 2023,” Lephoto said. “Then the website vanished. The message we got was that the page was under construction, that’s how QZ vanished with investors’ money,” Lephoto narrates. QZ told its investors that the website was down due to a ‘blockchain issue’. Meanwhile, accounts were inaccessible and investors were left counting their losses.
The Coordination & Recruitment
On Facebook and YouTube, the number of QZ-related content is massive. All the posts seen by Piga Firimbi appealed to individuals looking to invest, and the Facebook groups and pages where these posts were shared created the illusion that it was a safe investment opportunity with countless options for whoever wanted to multiply their income.
YouTube
In this YouTube video titled How I Made 378$ in 1 Day in QZ Asset Management uploaded on March 11, 2023, South African YouTuber Lindy Shirries tells her over 14,400 subscribers how she made $400 from a $100 investment. “People are making money,” Lindi says, “This is how easy it is to make money when it comes to QZ.” She wasn’t the only one to publish promotional content asking people to invest. We counted at least 372 YouTube videos with QZ-related content.
Moreover, Zoom call recordings and videos from in-person meetings were regularly uploaded on YouTube on different channels, mostly with an individual named Blake Yeung in attendance. Yeung was identified as the QZ Invest CEO, and in some of these videos, he talks about the BDAI (big data analytics and artificial intelligence) model. BDAI, according to the videos, is an emerging technology that automates tasks previously done by humans by utilizing large amounts of data. “All of these variables are under monitor by our robot, by our BDAI,” Yeung declares in one meeting.
This move to flood YouTube with videos seemingly worked. Visits to the website came from YouTube, accounting for 66.07% of traffic, followed by Facebook and LinkedIn with 23.62% and 10.30% respectively.
The bulk of online activity related to QZ Invest is on Facebook, where this page appears to issue official communication. Piga Firimbi counted 46 groups on the platform associated with QZ Assets Management, all created between October 2014 and May 2023. Most of them changed their name over time implying attempts to obscure their real identities. Such groups drive traffic to scams that aim to recruit unsuspecting social media users.
This Facebook group founded in 2017, has over 17,400 members, and had changed its name six times before it picked up the name QZ Asset Management on April 5, 2023. It currently runs under the name Big Munch Global.
Another one here was created on March 9, 2022 as Car Perfume & Fuel Tap. The group was renamed to QZ Asset Management on January 23, 2023, and shared QZ-related content, before changing to its current name, Metogence AI Robot.
Telegram was also used to recruit members albeit at a much smaller scale. Piga Firimbi counted at least seven groups affiliated with QZ Asset Management at present or in its previous content.
As is the case with legitimate businesses, scammers use social media promotion to increase their visibility and drive growth. Piga Firimbi uncovered similar patterns here in a scam in Kenya that leveraged Hustler Fund- a government-sponsored loan service launched by President William Ruto in November 2022.
The Potemkin Village
All the work that went into presenting QZ as a legitimate company harkens back to the era of Potemkin villages – deceptive or fake construction that gives the appearance of being real or substantial, often used to impress or deceive.
To sustain this image, QZ’s recruitment was strategic, promising returns of up to 400%, and incentivising investors to recruit others in their networks by promising rewards for those whose recruits put more money into the business. For investors, this looked like a clear risk-free opportunity to make tremendous profit – the bigger the investments, the bigger the profits. The interaction between ‘officials’ and investors also seemed tailored to assure anyone with any doubts that this was a genuine investment opportunity.
Solomon Eguh, a 35-year-old Nigerian, was enticed by the promise of high returns. “We were all introduced [to the platform] by partners who had come into the system before,” Eguh told Piga Firimbi in a phone interview. Eguh said that he joined the scheme after he was introduced by an acquaintance. He says that he lost more than KSh 946,190 when withdrawals halted on May 1, 2023.
QZ Assets Management convinced people to invest using social media influencers, regular Zoom meetings, Facebook groups and pages, and the promise of an Initial Public Offering (IPO). IPOs, where companies sell shares to the public, are one way for businesses to raise capital, and they are a way for members of the public to share in any profits that the company makes.
The claim by QZ was that they would have an IPO on NASDAQ in August 2023. NASDAQ is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and the plan to have an IPO there attracted investors like Nthabiseng Lephoto, who told Piga Firimbi that the potential listing was a big draw for many looking to invest. This narrative led to a spike in traffic to QZ’s website in early 2023.
A look at Google Trends analytics for the search words ‘QZ Assets Management’ revealed that Google searches peaked in May 2023. More specifically in Southern Africa i.e. Eswatini, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, and South Africa. See the screengrab below.
From the Google Trends seen above, searches associated with the query QZ Asset Management in Southern Africa were higher as a percentage of the total population compared to the rest of the world. .
Further analysis of the websites qzafrica.com and qzinvest.com on Similarweb reveals an identical trend, with a peak in May 2023. Between May 2023 and July 2023, the latter website had 1.384M visits, a 94.72% drop from April’s visits, and the former had 172,165 visits. The decline in May’s total visits correlates with the halt in withdrawals on May 1, 2023.
Two thirds of the 172,165 visits to qzinvest.africa came from South Africa, with Nigeria, France, Kenya, and Lesotho accounting for 18%, 11.89%, 1.04%, and 0.58% of visits respectively.
The Red Flags
If one searches the words QZ Assets management on Google, the first results presented are a press release on Bloomberg and an article on Yahoo Finance alongside a piece on the CEO News website praising CEO Blake Yeung for ‘Creating Value Beyond Wealth’. There is also an article on the NASDAQ website, the same stock exchange QZ claims it would be listed on, talking about fintech events that they would take part in. In response to our questions on QZ’s legitimacy, NASDAQ responded via email that “QZ Global is currently not trading”.
All the evidence obtained from QZ Assets’ online footprints points to a carefully crafted scam trying to present itself as a legitimate business.
The IPO lie
The company claimed it was scheduled to go public on NASDAQ – the second-largest stock exchange in the world – in August 2023. This was a lie meant to reel in investors. NASDAQ’s August IPO schedule does not contain QZ Assets Management. However, there is a Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filing by QZ Global Limited made in January 2023 which the firm used as a false mark of authenticity to woo unsuspecting investors. The SEC is a government agency overseeing security exchanges in the United States of America.
Further analysis of the document reveals that it was copied and pasted from an application made by another investment firm- TPG Capital – in 2021. Sections of the QZ filing document are lifted from TPG Capital’s document. Even the balance sheets of the accounts are slightly edited versions of TPG’s application.
The Fake Managers
On its website, QZ lists 5 names it claims are qualified and experienced managers at the firm. Piga Firimbi did not find any online traces verifying the existence of the said individuals, or their listed accomplishments and experience in major investment firms.
Speaking to victims of this scam and watching their videos online, the name Blake Yeung comes up frequently. Blake was identified as QZ’s Chief Executive Officer, and was present in some of the recorded Zoom calls shared on YouTube. He even met investors according to videos shared online, and is pictured at AI EXPO Korea, a business to business (B2B) event for industry players. QZ’s participation in 2019 is documented here and here. Blake also made media appearances as far back as 2019 in China, where QZ Asset Management was registered as Guangzhou Qianze Asset Management Co.Ltd on September 20, 2012.
The name Blake Yeung, however, does not appear in the Chinese registry. Piga Firimbi could not find any evidence to corroborate his supposed accolades, such as a Doctorate from the London School of Economics.
The website’s about page lists him as management alongside four other individuals – Roger Sim, Panjal Chandra, Julian D. Meyers, and Andrei Petrov. Piga Firimbi could not find any information on any members of the management team. Additionally, their names do not appear in connection to any of the institutions or corporations they claim to have worked for or studied in.
According to information on the China registry, QZ was registered in 2012 in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, China, and previously operated under the name Guangzhou Youpin Asset Management Co, Ltd. The director and beneficial owner are listed as one Cui Tong Fei, also listed as the director and founding partner in the SEC application that the company plagiarised. Previous shareholders are Liu Xiaoling 刘晓玲; Huang Chao 黄超; Qin Baojia 秦保家; Wang Yi 王怡; Diao Xiaofang 刁晓方; and Youpin Wealth Management Co., Ltd. Piga Firimbi could not find any information on Cui Tong Fei.
A number of regulators, including the Financial Sector Conduct Authority of South Africa, the Securities Exchange Commission of Zambia, and the Bank of Namibia have all warned against any dealings with QZ in June 2023. QZ had never been registered to make financial transactions in any of the countries in which it was most active. However, by the time these warnings were issued, withdrawals were already frozen and members were left out in the cold.
Despite all the evidence of organized scam activity flagged in more than three countries, QZ is still an active company in South Africa as QZ ASSET MANAGEMENT CUSTOMER SERVICE CONSULTANTS (PTY) LTD registered under one Gabisile Hlengiwe Fortunate Nxongo. Another active company also registered in South Africa under a similar name changed its name on March 30, 2023, to AMSA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT (PTY) LTD.
From our investigation, it is clear that QZ took advantage of the desperation of young people looking to make a living by presenting itself as a legitimate company that would multiply their investments and provide them with a huge return. At its height, the company claimed to manage Kshs 1.13 trillion in assets, but this may also have been a lie. The company, directors and technology all appear to have been an elaborate hoax designed to fool investors with false promises, and those behind this scam doubled down on these promises with a PR campaign that further cemented the impression that this was a legitimate enterprise. What is real, however, is the financial loss experienced by Nthabiseng Lephoto, Solomon Eguh and the countless other victims who are left chasing after the company that they poured their savings into. In a last-ditch effort to recover their lost deposits, victims of this scam started a change.org petition that has so far attracted 3,530 signatures. “To date, we are still hoping for QZ to come back and give us our money,” Lephoto told me, clearly disillusioned.
This article was produced with mentorship from the African Academy for Open Source Investigations (AAOSI), to tackle disinformation that undermines our democracies, as part of an initiative by the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) and Code for Africa (CfA). Visit disinfo.africa for more information.
This article was edited by Piga Firimbi Fact-checking Editor Calvin Rock
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