According to court documents, a group of individuals, including Abiodun Bakare, Quazeem Owolabi Adeyinka, and Ayodeji Jonathan Sangode, engaged in a scheme to defraud the States of Maryland and California through fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI) and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims between June 2020 and July 2021.
The scheme involved filing over 200 individual applications with the California Employment Development Department (EDD) and the Maryland Department of Labor (MDOL), falsely indicating that the claimants' address was a shared apartment in Hyattsville, Maryland, where the defendants resided.
During the conspiracy, the group obtained the personal information of individuals who were not eligible for UI or PUA benefits and used this information to submit false claims without the individuals' knowledge or consent.
The fabricated claims contained misleading details, such as fake employment history and earnings, false unemployment status, and unauthorized use of identities.
The fraudulent claims resulted in at least 142 approvals by EDD and MDOL, and the benefits were deposited into debit card accounts administered by Bank of America under the claimants' names.
The defendants controlled these addresses and received the unauthorized debit cards. Bakare withdrew funds from these cards at ATMs for his and his co-conspirators' benefit.
Additionally, Bakare possessed three more UI debit cards linked to accounts containing benefits from other states, including Maine, North Carolina, and Nevada.
He held these cards with the intent to deceive the state agencies and defraud them of additional funds.
The total amount of fraudulent UI and PUA benefits deposited into bank accounts linked to the cards used by Bakare amounted to at least $2,265,844.
He used a portion of this money to buy a condominium in Lekki, Lagos State, Nigeria, for 70 million Naira. The court ordered the forfeiture of this asset as part of Bakare's sentence.
Adeyinka and Sangode, who were also involved in the scheme, have pleaded guilty to their respective charges and are scheduled for sentencing later this year.
Adeyinka faces a maximum prison term of 20 years, while Sangode faces a maximum term of 15 years. The final sentences will consider various factors and adhere to sentencing guidelines.
In another news, a man has been arrested for fatally killing his ex-girlfriend and two other women. See Detailed Story here
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