Abidemi Rufai, a senior special assistant to Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, has been arrested in the United States over alleged $350,000 unemployment benefits fraud.
He was arrested last weekend at the JFK Airport, New York.
According to the US attorney’s office in Western District of Washington, a criminal complaint had been filed against Rufai for stealing over $350,000 in unemployment benefits from the Washington State employment security department (ESD).
It was said that he used the stolen identities of more than 100 Washington residents to file fraudulent claims with ESD for pandemic-related unemployment benefits.
Rufai was also accused of filing fraudulent unemployment claims with Hawaii, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Montana, New York, and Pennsylvania.
He was accused of using variations of a single e-mail address in a manner intended to evade automatic detection by fraud systems.
The American law enforcement agents said more than $288,000 was deposited into an American bank account controlled by Rufai between March and August 2020.
It was alleged that he directed the payment of the money to online payment accounts such as “Green Dot” accounts, or wired to bank accounts controlled by “money mules” and mailed to the Jamaica, New York addresses of Rufai’s relative.
During his first court appearance on Saturday, Tessa Gorman, acting US attorney, said it has been working with a law enforcement team since April 2020 to track criminals diverting relief funds meant for vulnerable American citizens.
According to Gorman, “Since the first fraud reports to our office in April 2020, we have worked diligently with a federal law enforcement team to track down the criminals who stole funds designated for pandemic relief.
“This is the first, but will not be the last, significant arrest in our ongoing investigation of ESD fraud.”
Rufai is scheduled for a detention hearing on Wednesday. He was appointed in August last year by Abiodun as an aide.
TheCable, which broke the reports said its attempts to reach Kunle Somorin, spokesman of the governor, were not answered.
