A United States district court has sentenced Abidemi Rufai,
suspended aide of Dapo Abiodun, governor of Ogun, to five years in prison for
fraud.
Rufai was arrested at New York’s JFK Airport on his way to
Nigeria in May 2021.
In May 2022, the US department of justice said Rufai
admitted using stolen identities to receive thousands of dollars in
pandemic-related unemployment benefits.
He was also admitted to have since 2017 obtained identifying
information for more than 20,000 Americans, submitted $2 million in claims for
disaster relief and other federal benefits, and received more than $600,000.
The largest amount of fraud was committed against the
Washington state employment security department, which paid out $350,763 in
fraudulent pandemic unemployment claims to accounts controlled by Rufai.
Rufai was also said to have submitted fraudulent pandemic
unemployment claims in at least 17 other states including Hawaii, Wyoming,
Massachusetts, Montana, New York, and Pennsylvania.
In asking for a nearly six-year prison sentence Cindy Chang,
assistant United States attorney stated that Rufai’s scam hurt actual people
who needed assistance
“In this case, Rufai
successfully used the stolen identities of at least 238 real individuals who
qualified for disaster aid and may have needed it urgently. This number does
not account for the number of stolen identities Rufai attempted to use but
failed,” she said.
At the sentencing hearing on Monday, Benjamin H. Settle, US
district judge said: “The motivation was greed, unrestrained greed, and a
callousness towards those who have suffered.”
Nick Brown, US attorney said “Mr. Rufai was relentless in
his scheme to use the stolen identities of Americans for fraud.”
“He orchestrated ‘mystery shopper’ scams, business email
compromise attempts, and filed fake tax returns to financially harm individuals
and businesses. But when disaster struck, so did Mr. Rufai. Whether it was
hurricane disaster relief, small business loans, or COVID unemployment
benefits, he stole aid that should have gone to disaster victims in the United
States.”
According to a statement by the US department of justice,
45-year-old Rufai “has agreed to pay full restitution of $604,260 to the
defrauded agencies”.
However, the statement added that “he has not fully
cooperated with efforts to identify and forfeit assets that could be used for
restitution”.
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