Do you remember the Italian who robbed Kenyan investors million of Shillings?
Well the Italian identified as Carl James Esprey,is back in business with a new company seeking to export medical marijuana from African countries, including Zimbabwe and Lesotho.
Mr Esprey whose earlier venture in Kenya Atlas African Industries disappeared with more than Ksh450 million of investors’ money and now he has partnered with Kojo Annan (son of former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan) to launch African Cannabis, which is following the same script that left thousands of investors in Atlas out of pocket.
Details of his new venture are contained in filings with the Canadian capital market regulators, which show that African Cannabis also plans to go public by merging with Trius Investments Inc, a company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) and whose business comprises property investment and garbage collection.
Atlas raised Sh450.1 million in a private placement from Kenyan investors in 2014 when it listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) where it debuted with a market capitalisation of Sh4.9 billion.
Besides participating in the private placement, Kenyan investors also bought shares after the listing but suffered heavy losses when the stock price collapsed from the initial Sh11.5 to Sh1.05 by the time it was suspended from trading in May last year.
After closing the Kenyan operations, Atlas tried its hands at diverse sectors and countries before literally disappearing with no communication to shareholders.
Mr Esprey’s new venture, African Cannabis, is also raising Sh1.5 billion (20 million Canadian dollars) in a private placement in Canada, whose proceeds will be used to fund production and export of medical marijuana.
“African Cannabis is a Toronto-based company incorporated in British Columbia in 2018 to deal in the production, cultivation, extraction and export of medical cannabis in multiple African countries,” the company said in market disclosures.
Besides African Cannabis, Mr Esprey is also linked to other companies, including London-based realtor Mayfair UK (Properties) Limited which he recently joined as a director.