An extreme runner from London has been accused of hiring staff to help him raise $1million (£785,000) for Unicef before leaving them tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket while going on trips abroad.
Tomasz Drybala allegedly ‘scammed’ multiple people in the UK and US while pretending to fundraise – as the charity launches a probe into his activities following MailOnline’s investigation.
He is accused of repeatedly employing people without paying them, using fake promotional videos and forging testimonials to secure interviews with high-flying brands, such as Red Bull, to legitimise his persona.
By claiming to be fundraising for charity, Drybala has secured access to running clubs around the world, a series of high-flying media opportunities and has taken frequent trips abroad – all without raising a penny.
Victims spoken to by MailOnline say they have been left out of pocket by thousands of pounds, were asked to pay for their own training and even had fake words attributed to them on his website.
Some have ended up in debt and had to borrow money from loved ones to stay afloat.
Drybala told MailOnline the allegations were ‘taken out of context’ and ‘interpretations of facts, and not facts themselves’.
The athlete, who variously describes himself as an ‘identity and courage coach’, ‘ultra endurance athlete and explorer’ and ‘motivational speaker’, claims to be running the circumference of the globe by 2025, including trips to Cairo, Kuwait and Indonesia.
Yet according to his website he has only run in five of his 30 planned countries, halfway through the time frame he set himself. There is no record of him actually raising a penny for charity, and no information on how to donate to his cause.
Abby, from Hertfordshire, told MailOnline she signed an employment contract with Drybala, who was born in Poland but lives in the UK, in summer 2021 that promised her a salary of £44,000 per year.
‘I had payslips every month,’ she said, ‘But I never received a penny.’
After seeing the project management role advertised, Abby did plenty of research on Drybala and his company. She was hired specifically to manage his ‘ultrarun’.
‘I saw he said he was sponsored by Red Bull, there were all these press articles, the website looked genuine – it all looked above board,’ she said.
‘He was very, very convincing. The first month’s pay date came around and he suddenly said [one of] his companies had gone into administration and he couldn’t pay.’
Drybala promised Abby he would pay her the next month, but when her second payday came around with no money being transferred into her account, a pattern began to emerge.
Having no other work, Abby continued her employment with Drybala for more than five months before she eventually managed to find another job. By November 2021 she estimates she was owed £13,000 in salary, plus interest payments.
‘I’m in so much debt because of it still, I’ve had to borrow money from my parents’ retirement funds to pay it off.
‘I had to take out loans, it’s completely screwed my life up. I’m just gutted I fell for it.’
Abby repeatedly followed up about the money she was owed, stressing the urgency of her financial situation.
In emails seen by MailOnline, Drybala either did not respond or repeatedly promised she would be paid imminently.
‘I work with a speaker agency and I’m already booked for over 60 percent dates for the next eight months. So I will finally manage to resolve all financial problems,’ Drybala wrote in November 2022.
Abby followed up for the last time in January. She has heard nothing since, and still has received no money.
Drybala told multiple people spoken to by MailOnline that he would settle debts through his company, with his website stating he offers paid keynote and motivational speeches and ‘mindful self-leadership and healing coaching’.
There are countless clips of him delivering talks on his social media, but not one of them shows the audience, or even any audio of what he is saying. He has also never named an event he is speaking at or given a precise location or client details, leading his victims to believe they are faked.
In one clip, Drybala is seen speaking to a computer screen with four people apparently video calling him – yet all of the people are frozen in time, with two pictured mid-wave while his lips continue to move. He did not comment on this when asked by MailOnline.
His carefully cultivated social media presence is helped by professional videos of him running.
He spent several months in the US this year and participated in some runs with local running groups. Around this time he hired Josh Collins, from California, as a video editor for $1,500 (almost £1,200) per month.
Mr Collins did a month of work but alarm bells began ringing after he did not receive any money on his scheduled payday.
In addition, Josh claims Drybala repeatedly asked him for money while he was employed by him towards the cost of US hotels.
‘I had lost a job just before so I was in a vulnerable spot,’ Josh said.
‘After a month he started making excuses, saying he had lost sponsors. During the process of working for him he asked me to pay for hotels, coming up with excuses such as that he had lost his wallet.
‘I didn’t have any money to give him but I began to see the pattern and thought he might be doing this to other people. I realised he hadn’t just not paid me, he had duped others into paying him.’
Despite never paying for any of Josh’s work, the videographer says Drybala has used his edited videos on his website and social media. At the same time, text messages between the pair showed Josh kept asking for his money.
At one point, Drybala did not respond to his messages for four months. He then said he is ‘still working to pay off all outstanding invoices’ but ‘for sure I will clear it’. This was more than two years after he allegedly failed to pay Abby.
Josh said he did not film the clips, which appeared to show the athlete running through multiple countries. Instead, he was sent footage which he would edit together to make it appear as if Drybala had lots of support on the road.
Drybala’s outstanding bills date back more than three years. In August 2020, he hired a digital marketing specialist for a fixed fee of £200.
The blogger told MailOnline she was never paid, and showed emails in which the company through which she was hired informed her Drybala had wracked up ‘thousands of pounds’ of unpaid invoices with them.
Correspondence shows he initially informed her payments would be ‘somewhat delayed’ due to the pandemic.
In October 2020, he was still telling her he had ‘no funds’, but that he would get paid by an unnamed ‘sponsor’ within 14 days.
After she threatened to take him to court over the bill, he added: ‘However disappointed and flustered for all of us it is, from my perspective, legal action against my company will not speed up the process.
‘You have your right to claim this money in court, but that won’t change what I have to do before I will be able to pay your invoice.
‘Responding to emails and claims takes time and slows down the work I have to do before I can fix my cash flow and payment issues.
‘I need to concentrate now to finish all the work. Every negative email is pushing me away from work for a valuable time [sic].’
In February 2021, he told her she could expect money in her bank account within ‘7-28 days’. To date, she has still not been paid her fee.
As well as unpaid work, Drybala has also been accused of faking testimonials on his website.
Steve, a running coach from the UK, told MailOnline he had been offered employment to assist him organising a running retreat in October 2020.
The retreat was eventually called off due to Covid-19, but Steve had sent a photo to him for the website for the retreat to be advertised.
Several weeks ago Steve said: ‘I see that my photo is still on his website with a glowing testimonial about his online course. I didn’t write the testimonial as I’ve never done his course.
‘I was as recently as October this year contacted by Tomasz again as he said he wanted running coaches to help people who take the online course stay on the course to get full value.
‘He said he would pay me £250 a week to do 10 hours of work for him. All I needed to do was pay for and sign up for the course myself first (£295 or something like that).
‘I declined because I said I’ve never taken on a role where training is not provided by the employer and he said that as I would be self employed it had to be this way.’
Steve did not lose any money to Drybala, and eventually the runner agreed to remove his ‘testimonial’ from the site.
Many other alleged victims have spoken out about Drybala on social media, saying they have also not been paid for work. Others say they have taken his £325 online leadership courses on the basis of an advertised ‘guaranteed refund’ if they are not satisfied – only for their requests for their money back to be ignored.
As he claims in interviews and on other social media sites, there are posts on his account saying he is running to raise money for Unicef.
But there is no record of how much money he has raised or given to the charity – and no active fundraising pages or links to Unicef across his online presence.
MailOnline found one link to a GoFundMe page – which has since been deleted – but rather than a charity fundraiser, Drybala told his followers he needed ‘help’ in order to afford his mammoth running challenge and asked for personal donations.
Unicef told MailOnline: ‘We take allegations of fraud very seriously and have robust procedures in place to investigate allegations such as these. If needed, we would raise this with the police and the charity commission.’
A spokesperson added they could not comment further while an investigation into Drybala is ongoing.
The runner also claims that National Geographic is his ‘media patron’ in multiple social media posts – but there is just one article written about him on the firm’s Polish website. There is no reference to them being his ‘patron’.
National Geographic has been contacted for comment.
When contacted by MailOnline, Tomasz Drybala offered our reporter free access to his online leadership course and blamed employees for allegedly not submitting work to him.
He said: ‘Some things did not go as we wanted. Over the years, I have lost several sponsors and partnerships that should have provided funding for this project, which has put me in debt and affected some of the people working with me.
‘Of course, the responsibility is mine, but working virtually has its challenges. Sometimes people submit hours but forget to submit the work, which for small businesses like mine, may have dramatic consequences as it affects the entire project.
‘I learned my lesson, and now I work only with carefully selected professionals driven by mission and purpose. So I can trust in their commitments to deliver results.
‘I was actually a little naive and underestimated how long it would take for this project to be a success.’
Drybala claimed he has been working to raise awareness about trauma since 2018 and has run 17,000 miles since then. He also said he has ‘spoken in front of 50,000 people in 14 countries’.
He added: ‘I understand the anger of those people you talked with, and I regret I am the cause of this anger. No matter my reasons, this is wrong, and I have to correct it.
‘I neglected some of my responsibilities for too long, and I see what dramatic consequences it may bring, as it may put me a few years back and damage all my effort for the past few years.
‘But most of these allegations are taken [out of context] and are interpretations of facts, not facts themselves, which I can provide evidence for.’
He declined to comment on allegations concerning charitable fundraising, but finally launched a fundraising page on the day MailOnline exposed his activities.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/articles.rss
Elizabeth Haigh
