8 Nigerians in US prisons for stealing COVID-19 relief funds

The pandemic relief program was a government initiative designed to assist struggling Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, but rather than support the initiative, criminals saw an opportunity to perpetrate fraud.

According to the New York Times, as of August 2023, over 3,100 people have been charged for COVID-19 pandemic-related fraud. Some of these fraudsters are Nigerians, who used the proceeds from their fraudulent activities to ship cars to Nigeria.

Here’s the list of Nigerians who have been prosecuted in the US for stealing COVID-19 relief funds.

Olayeye was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City for fraudulently obtaining at least $10 million in COVID-19 unemployment benefits on Tuesday, August 13, 2024.

The 40-year-old Nigerian is charged with one count of wire fraud conspiracy, one count of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft.

According to the charging documents, Olayeye and others defrauded three pandemic assistance programs administrated by the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance and other states’ unemployment insurance agencies: traditional unemployment insurance (UI), Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) between March and July 2020.

If found guilty of the charges of wire fraud, he may be sentenced to 20 years imprisonment with an additional minimum of two years for the charge of aggravated identity theft.

When Abidemi Rufai was arrested at New York’s JFK airport in May 2021, he was a Special Assistant to Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State.

Rufai was arrested for unlawfully obtaining the personal identifying information of more than 20,000 Americans to submit more than $2 million in claims for government-funded benefits.

The ex-governor’s aide’s efforts to enrich himself with false disaster claims dated back to 2017 when he submitted 49 disaster relief claims connected to Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma.

In 2022, Rufai pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for using stolen identities to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in pandemic-related unemployment benefits. He was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison.

In July 2023, a court in California sentenced Olamide Bakare to four years and nine months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bakare, who had pleaded guilty in January 2023, conspired with two other Nigerians, Quazeem Owolabi Adeyinka and Ayodeji Jonathan Sangode to submit fraudulent unemployment insurance and pandemic unemployment assistance claims to the States of Maryland and California.

Adeyinka pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, while Sangode pleaded guilty to access device fraud. In October 2023, both were sentenced to 26 months and 14 months in prison respectively.

In May 2022, two Nigerians in Georgia, Olushola Adewole Afolabi, and Olugbeminiyi Aderibigbe, pleaded guilty to using stolen identities to fraudulently collect more than $4 million in unemployment benefits from the Illinois Department of Employment Security (DES) and attempting to defraud at least five other states.

Afolabi and Aderibigbe have not been sentenced yet, however, the maximum penalty for conspiracy to commit wire fraud is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Bamidele Muraina was sentenced to US federal prison in September 2021 for hacking into tax preparation firms and filing fraudulent unemployment benefit claims and tax returns using stolen personally identifiable information.

Muraina, a previously convicted fraudster, was reported to have used the stolen information from Washington residents to submit false claims for unemployment insurance benefits in Washington.

His false claims exploited a federal COVID-19 pandemic relief program and directed the funds into bank accounts set up by co-conspirators.