Abidemi Rufai, a Senior Special Assistant to Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, on Special Duties, has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States for his role in $350,000 (N133 billion) unemployment benefits fraud.
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Rufai was arrested on Friday evening at the John F Kennedy International Airport in New York based on criminal complaint, according to the Seattle Times of the US.
According to the newspaper, the 42-year-old suspect appeared before a federal court on Saturday on charges alleging he used the identities of more than 100 Washington residents to fraudulently receive over $350,000 in unemployment benefits from the Washington State Employment Security Department during the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
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The US Department of Justice, District of Washington alleged that Rufai used the pseudonym Sandy Tang and the stolen identities of more than 100 Washington residents to file fraudulent claims with Employment Security Department for unemployment benefits last year during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Rufai also filed fraudulent unemployment claims with Hawaii, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Montana, New York, and Pennsylvania. Rufai used variations of a single e-mail address in a manner intended to evade automatic detection by fraud systems. By using this practice, Rufai made it appear that each claim was connected with a different email account,” Acting US Attorney for the Western District of Washington, Tessa Gorman, said in court filing.
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The criminal complaint also said Rufai mailed some of the proceeds of his fraud to the Jamaica and New York addresses of his relatives with more than $288,000 deposits between March and August 2020.
US federal investigators said Rufai was identified through a single Gmail account, which he used to file 102 claims for unemployment benefits, using stolen personal identities of real Washington residents.
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Also, emails containing bank and credit card numbers, birth dates and other personal identifying information, images of driver’s licences, and “a very large volume” of tax returns of U.S. taxpayers were also found in his possession.
“Since the first fraud reports to our office in April 2020, we have worked diligently with a federal law enforcement team to track down the criminals who stole funds designated for pandemic relief,” said Gorman.
“This is the first, but will not be the last, significant arrest in our ongoing investigation of ESD fraud.”
Rufai is scheduled for a detention hearing Wednesday. He risks 30 years in prison if found guilty of the allegation.
