Tacoma – A 45-year-old resident of Lekki, Nigeria was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to 5 years in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for attempting to steal nearly $2.4 million from a government of the United States, including about $500,000 in pandemic-related unemployment benefits, US Attorney Nick Brown announced. At the time of his arrest, Abidermi Rufai was the Special Assistant to the Governor of Ogun State, Nigeria. He admitted to a long history of using stolen identities to defraud US disaster programs, including aid for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and to file fraudulent US tax returns. At the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle said, “The motivation was greed, unbridled greed, and callousness toward the victims.”
“Mr. Rufai was relentless in his scheme to use the stolen identities of Americans for fraud,” said US Attorney Nick Brown. “He orchestrated ‘secret shopper’ scams, attempted business email compromises, and filed returns fake tax to financially harm individuals and businesses. But when disaster struck, Mr. Rufai did so. Whether it was hurricane disaster relief, small business loans, or COVID unemployment benefits, he stole aid should have been given to disaster victims in the United States.”
“Abdemi Rufai chose to take advantage of the pandemic for personal gain, using the stolen identities of Americans to support his lavish lifestyle abroad,” said Associate Deputy Attorney General Kevin Chambers, Director of COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement. 19 of the Department of Justice. “The US Attorney’s Office and its law enforcement partners did an exceptional job in bringing this defendant to justice. The Department will continue to pursue fraudsters who have abused these programs and seek to recover their ill-gotten gains, whether in the United States or abroad.”
According to records filed in the case, since 2017, Rufai stole the personal identification information of more than 20,000 Americans to submit more than $2 million in claims for federally funded disaster relief benefits and fraudulent tax returns. The various agencies involved paid more than $600,000.
The largest amount of fraud was committed against the Washington State Department of Employment Security, which paid $350,763 in fraudulent pandemic unemployment claims to accounts controlled by Rufai. Rufai also filed fraudulent unemployment claims in at least 17 other states.
“The Department of Employment Security is very grateful for the tireless efforts of the Department of Justice, federal agencies and law enforcement in this matter,” said Cami Feek, Commissioner of the Department of Employment Security. “We are always ready to hold those who steal public funds to account and appreciate the partnership in arresting and prosecuting this individual.”
Rufai also defrauded the Small Business Administration (SBA) by attempting to obtain Economically Injurious Disaster Loans (EIDL) related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 8 April 2020, and 26 June 2020, he submitted 19 fraudulent EIDL applications. SBA paid $10,000 based on the applications.
Between 2017 and 2020, Rufai attempted to obtain more than $1.7 million in IRS tax refunds by submitting 675 false claims. The IRS paid $90,877 on these claims.
Rufai’s efforts to capitalize on the US disaster did not begin with COVID-19. In September and October 2017, it filed 49 disaster relief claims related to Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. He filed $24,500 in false claims and was paid on 13 claims totaling $6,500.
In seeking a prison sentence of nearly six years, Assistant United States Attorney Cindy Chang noted that Rufai’s scheme damaged real people who needed help. “In this case, Rufai managed to use the stolen identities of at least 238 people who qualified for disaster assistance and may be in urgent need. This number does not account for the number of stolen identities that Rufai tried to use but failed.”
Rufai agreed to pay a total of $604,260 in restitution to the fraud agencies, but did not fully cooperate with efforts to identify and forfeit assets that could be used for restitution.
“Mr. Rufai didn’t care if the disaster was a pandemic or a hurricane, or if the victim was a hard-working American taxpayer, small business, or the US government,” said Richard A. Collodi, Special Agent in Charge. FBI Seattle Field Office. “He could have used his influence to be a role model in his community. Instead, he stole the identity of Washington state residents and money meant for those in need.”
“Mr. Rufai said, ‘Ultimately the choices we make are our responsibility,’ and he is right. This sentence is a result of the choices he made to fund his luxurious lifestyle. His fraud schemes began from filing fraudulent tax returns from stolen identities to pilfering economic assistance to help disadvantaged workers and families suffering as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Seattle Field Office Special Agent in Charge Bret Kressin. “Continued IRS-CI continues to provide our financial expertise to investigate large-scale fraud with our law enforcement partners.”
“Rufai used the stolen personal identification information of thousands of Americans to defraud more than $600,000 in government benefits, including approximately $350,000 from the Washington Department of Employment Security. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to aggressively investigate and prosecute those who defrauded unemployment insurance programs during the global health crisis,” said Quentin Heiden, US Department of Labor Special Agent in Charge, Office of the High -Inspector, Los Angeles Region.
Abidemi Rufai has been in custody since his arrest at New York’s JFK airport in May 2021. The Eastern New York District Attorney’s Office assisted in detention hearings following Rufai’s arrest.
This case was investigated by the FBI, with assistance from the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations, the Office of the Inspector General for Homeland Security, and the Office of the Small Business Administration of the United States Inspector, and the Washington Employment Security Department (ESD).
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Cindy Chang and Seth Wilkinson of the Western District of Washington.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to direct the Department of Justice’s resources in partnership with agencies across the government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force strengthens efforts to investigate and prosecute the most delinquent domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering fraud prevention relief programs by augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, resources and identify techniques to detect, and share, fraudulent actors and their schemes. and benefit from information and insights gained from previous implementation efforts. For more information about the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus.
Anyone with information about an alleged attempted fraud related to COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Disaster Fraud Center (NCDF) Hotline via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
