By Ayoola Olasupo
A 60-year-old Nigerian man, Akinpelumi Oyewusi, has pleaded guilty to an unemployment insurance fraud scheme estimated at $415,874.
According to a statement by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland seen by Diaspora Tales on Thursday, Oyewusi, who is a resident of Hyattsville, Maryland, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The statement quoted the prosecution as saying that Oyewusi and his co-conspirators operated the scheme between September 2020 and March 2021, targeting state workforce authorities, including the Maryland Department of Labour, to obtain fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits.
According to court documents, the conspirators allegedly used the identities of real people, including their names and Social Security numbers, to file false unemployment claims with state authorities in Maryland and California.
The claims, it added, contained falsified information about the victims’ employment and unemployment status, after which the fraudulently obtained funds were loaded onto bank-issued debit cards and mailed to addresses in Maryland and elsewhere.
Oyewusi then tracked the delivery of the fraudulent debit cards through United States Postal Service mail alerts and withdrew money from the accounts.
According to the statement, the prosecutors said ATM photographs captured him withdrawing $18,000 from cards linked to six fraudulent claims between December 2020 and March 2021, while bank records showed that he withdrew about $69,000 from the cards during the scheme.
Oyewusi, who was directly linked to at least $415,874.63 in losses and personally obtained at least $25,000 from the operation, had been scheduled for sentencing on December 3 at 2 pm.
