SCAM Nation?
SPAC Nation is an evangelical church in London.
They focus on saving and serving at-risk youth in the community.
And by that we mean scamming and lying to at-risk youth!
Crooked pastors such as Mariam Mbula and founder Tobi Adegboyega have been at the center of
controversy since the church's inception.
But still, teenagers and Millenials give money to them in hopes of turning their life around.
The church Pastors even forced their followers to sell blood for donation money!
SPAC Officially named the Salvation Proclaimers
Anointed Church, SPAC Nation first appeared in 2008.
Created by Pastor Tobi Adegboyega, the church only had three members in its early stages.
SPAC is based in South London and is known for its direct approach to getting criminals
off the streets by inviting gang members to their services and asking them to drop their
weapons.
These tactics gained them the media attention needed to grow their church.
SPAC continued its mission with a particular target in mind: people under 30 who lived
in dangerous areas of London.
SPAC became a popular community outreach program that received praise from the media and even
the Metropolitan Police.
SPAC operates in neighborhoods with high crime rates and a population consisting of primarily
black millennials.
Their weapon exchange program got the attention of both the Conservative and Labour Parties.
The program asked former gang members to hand over their weapons, which SPAC pastors then
gave to the London police.
The church has also found creative ways to attract more people to their services.
SPAC formed rap and R&B groups to perform and sing songs about salvation and Jesus.
However, the leaders of those groups would soon become the loudest voices speaking out
against SPAC.
Before the SPAC controversy became mainstream, they grew their member base from less than
300 in 2016 to 2000 in 2020.
SPAC has taken its time to get to know its congregation and exploits the lavish lifestyle
of its pastors to lure more black Millenials to their church.
The pastors dress in expensive clothes, wear high-end jewelry, and drive fancy cars.
First Hand Account To the public, SPAC's mission seems well-intentioned.
According to the people they’ve scammed, there is a lot to be discovered.
The church faces many accusations of misusing funds and impersonating its members to open
bank accounts on their behalf.
One specific case regarding a 19-year-old woman named Lovis stands out.
The girl, who was staying at one of the church's youth houses, said SPAC took out a £5,000
bank loan in her name without her even knowing about it.
SPAC used the £5,000 to create a company on her behalf, from which they transferred
the money to a different set of companies owned by SPAC pastors.
When she confronted the pastors, they told her it was for the "greater good" and that
the money will buy a bigger youth house.
Of course, as expected, Lovis would have to deal with the loan payments herself, which
added up to £10,000.
Sadly, nobody knows what happened to the money afterward.
As if it weren't enough, some people have even come forward saying they were forced
to take out a Universal Credit, a type of welfare in the UK, only to get half the money.
There have been reports of sign-up days in which up to 50 young people would sign up
to get the government benefit.
Once approved, SPAC would take half the money.
They targeted vulnerable young people to gain their trust before asking them for ridiculous
amounts of money.
If the person said they wouldn't be able to get that money, the church would suggest a
bank loan.
Pastor Samual Akokhia asked a young man to take out a 20,000-pound loan to fund an investment
opportunity.
When the man became suspicious and asked for proof, Akokhia became angry and asked if he
was "doubting a man of God."
Pastors and high leaders within the church would pressure their followers to fork over
more money.
When it didn't work, SPAC just took the money anyway.
They had all of the bank information they needed to apply for loans in their follower's
names.
One young man left the church after he was scammed out of 2,000 pounds but then received
a letter in the mail saying he'd been accepted for a 5,000-pound loan.
Safe House The biggest project funded by SPAC was their
'trap' houses.
As confusing as the name may be, TRAP homes were meant to save young gang members from
violence in the streets.
TRAP stood for 'Take Risks and Prosper,' a way to change the narratives and lives of
at-risk SPAC members.
In these houses, young people lived close to pastors in the church to keep them away
from crime.
The media reported on the project and praised how it allowed young black people to get out
of gangs and violence– many of the kids even said they would be dead if it weren't
for the trap house.
Members of the British Parliament called these houses a "holistic solution" to the rise of
fatal knife crimes in London.
But the stories coming out of these houses were far from a fairytale.
Reports of mistreatment within the houses surfaced, with a specific case of a 16-year
old girl stating she was mistreated in one of the trap houses.
Another incident where a young boy said he had been whipped with a belt while a pastor
recited some bible verses was quickly dismissed by the church as a joke.
One Trap House was run by Mariam Mbula, the queen bee of SPAC scams.
She ran her Trap house strictly and pressured young women into handing over all their personal
and financial information.
She said she'd be managing their accounts and asked them to take out 5,000-pound loans
to keep the church's mission going.
Given the negative attention the trap houses were receiving, SPAC Nation publicly "distanced"
itself from the project, saying they were independently run houses.
However, they were clearly promoting them as SPAC Safe Houses all over social media.
Career Con One of the most notorious pastors within SPAC
Nation is Mariam Mbula.
Known also as Mariam Mola, among other aliases, Mbula has a laundry list of fraud convictions
in the UK, Spain, and Belgium.
She had been busted while running a gang of thieves targeting luxury fashion brands all
over Europe.
By age 26, she had already been jailed five separate times.
If Mbula is known for something –other than her convictions– it's the way she's chosen
to share her life story on social media.
During her last stint in prison, she was 8 months pregnant.
Forced to give birth in jail, she used the story to advertise a healed persona, making
it seem like she'd turned her life around.
Her story was even featured on some of the UK's most-watched talk shows.
She decided to become a mentor for women, using her embellished life story to create
yet another fraudulent business: Mentor MatcHer.
People saw her as a "philanthropist."
Really, she used her way with words to persuade women into investing in her company, scamming
more people along the way– some victims claim she took between £77,000 to £100,000.
Once a Con, Always a Con Many women opened up about being scammed by
Mbula.
Her response was to stay quiet.
It's clear she has become an expert in laying low and resurfacing with a whole new personality,
which is what she did with SPAC Nation.
She reappeared as an ordained minister of the church and started preaching the prosperity
gospel, using her life story as the main attraction.
As expected, Mbula didn't change that much– this time, she used the structure SPAC was
providing to profit from vulnerable women.
Many of her victims said they were impressed when they first met her, given her lavish
lifestyle that included expensive clothes and dinners at top-notch restaurants in London.
She targeted young, vulnerable women with good credit scores or who had not taken out
loans in the past.
Then, she forced them to get money and give it to her.
Since most of these girls were staying in her safe house, Mariam had control over them.
Along with high leaders from SPAC Nation, she used their power to force young people
into doing whatever they could to give them more money.
To top it off, she never kept up with loan payments, letting the brunt of the money fall
on her victims.
While she was off partying and living in luxury, the at-risk millennials she was supposed to
be helping were left to handle the banks.
SPAC Pastors SPAC Nation has become a clever organization
when it comes to luring young people into its ranks, and Mbula isn't the only one doing
it.
Knowing how gullible a young person from an impoverished background can be, SPAC pastors
created novelty schemes to secure more fraudulent loans.
On one occasion, 28-year old Toye, a churchgoer, was pressured by her pastor, George Jumbo,
to get a £5,000 loan– she had only met him a few months prior.
He even sent her a video waving a large wad of cash stemming from his successful crypto-trading
business.
Toye trusted his guidance and decided to invest in his business using money from multiple
loans– even allowing him to apply for a loan on her behalf.
At the time, the loans fell through, but she'd already handed over all her personal information
to Jumbo.
Then two years later, she receives letters stating she'd been approved for a loan she
knew nothing about.
The letters and loans kept coming in.
Soon, Jumbo had acquired more than 10,000 pounds of loans in her name.
Another scheme included signing up for Universal Credit.
SPAC used their trap houses as the scene for large-scale sign-ups.
They had an actual Universal Credit representative take applications and formed a line of about
50 young people to enlist in the government program.
They would hand over their passports and IDs and were told their names wouldn't appear
in the official data, so it would look like they hadn't been enrolled.
Some members found themselves in 1,000 pounds worth of debt– even when they were told
they wouldn't have to pay for anything.
SPAC members would even use WhatsApp and Snapchat to pressure victims into taking loans as soon
as possible.
But this wasn't enough for SPAC Nation.
Apparently, the church went as far as asking youngsters to donate blood for medical trials.
SPAC members were paid 100 pounds to donate blood for medical trials, which they'd turn
around and hand over to their pastors.
Known as "Bleeding for Seed," the church considered the blood money a donation offering from its
members.
Mbula, one of the pastors in charge of the scheme, pressured youngsters via WhatsApp,
actively asking them for their "seed."
Let the Youngers Go As the public became more aware of SPAC Nation's
tactics, a group of victims banded together to raise their voices over the injustices
they went through in the church.
Let The Youngers Go is a group of former churchgoers and workers who claim the SPAC Preachers exploited
them for money.
They actively campaign for young SPAC members to be set free from the church and any wrongful
debt acquired while a member.
One of the group's members, Tkay' Madmax' Mukuna, who had joined SPAC back in 2018 and
remained there for 10 months, fronts the church's rap group and feels responsible for so many
people getting involved with it.
When in church, Mukuna says he started having disagreements with Pastor Tobi about his lyrics.
He wanted to leave but felt pressured to stay.
Now, he sees a lot of people coming out of the church and speaking up against it.
On one occasion, there was a public clash between the group and SPAC members, which
had to be dismantled by the police, effectively protecting SPAC from the "attack."
Entry Fee Their financial schemes were pretty blunt.
They put a lot of emphasis on donations– forcing people to donate seed money if they
wanted to continue to come to their services.
A significant part of their service revolved around cash: getting it, motivating others
to give it, and "investing" it.
Some victims felt they were pressured to give the church money and, because of the prosperity
preachings, they thought they'd get their money back ten-fold.
At one point, Pastor Tobi was reported to be asking specific amounts of money through
an entry fee.
There would be an envelope that asked for a £200 minimum donation.
Ongoing Investigation While there have been several allegations
of fraud since 2019, it wasn't until 2020 that the Metropolitan Police started investigating
SPAC Nation.
According to the media, there are at least 20 active cases that authorities are looking
into.
SPAC Nation has denied these allegations, stating they have a robust system to handle
all their complaints and that they would not respond to any of the individual claims about
their pastors.
According to SPAC, they "cannot monitor what each pastor or leader does."
As of 2020, Pastor Tobi has stepped down from the newly-named NXATION Church.
He was replaced by pastors Damy Balogun and Samuel Akokhia, who've racked up numerous
fraud claims against them.
While Pastor Tobi published a press release saying he was leaving, it was unclear whether
he was honest about it because he said he would still be leading the church publicly.
On top of this, two people involved with the church have been arrested on fraud allegations
presented in early 2020.
Police claim these charges are targeted at the pastors, not the organization.
As for Mariam Mbula, she's still free.
Although she is part of the ongoing investigation, there is no clear sign she's stopped her scamming.
No stint in prison is enough to turn Mariam from her scamming ways.
So, one question remains: will she ever be caught?
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