A 45-year old Nigerian, Sakiru Olanrewaju Ambali who arrested in February 2023 for allegedly defrauding the pandemic unemployment benefit programs in multiple states, has made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court, Tacoma today.
Ambali while traveling back to Canada from Nigeria was detained in Germany pending extradition and arrived the Western District of Washington yesterday afternoon.
Ambali together with his co-defendant, 45 year old Fatiu Ismaila Lawal, are facing charges of fraud, after they were accused of using the stolen identities of thousands of Americans to submit over 1,700 claims for pandemic unemployment benefits to over 25 different states, including Washington State.
In the charge document, Lawal and Ambali were accused of using the stolen personal information of thousands of U.S. taxpayers and residents to file fraudulent claims for COVID-19 pandemic assistance and false tax returns seeking refunds.
The claims in total were said to have sought approximately $25 million, but the duo allegedly obtained approximately $2.4 million, primarily from pandemic unemployment benefits.
They were also accused of submitting claims for pandemic unemployment benefits to more than 25 states including New York, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, California, and Washington.
With the use of 13 Google accounts, Lawal and Ambali were said to have filed some 900 claims.
They were also accused of establishing four internet domain names for fraud , while they allegedly created about 800 different email addresses that were used for fraud.
The duo were said to have filed over 2,300 fraudulent income tax returns, while they sought over $7.1 million in tax refunds.
The IRS noticed most of the abberations and paid only about $30,000 in fraudulent refunds.
They were also accused of attempting to use the stolen American identities for Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) to defraud the Small Business Administration.
The indictment document also accused Ambali and Lawal of using the proceeds of their fraud sent to cash cards or to “money mules” who transferred the funds according to instructions given by the co-conspirators.
They were also accused of using stolen identities to open bank accounts, depositing the money directly into those accounts for their use.
The duo were then charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, ten counts of wire fraud and six counts of aggravated identity theft.
The charges of conspiracy and wire fraud counts are punishable by up to 30 years in prison, while aggravated identity theft is punishable by a mandatory minimum two years in prison to run consecutive to any other prison time imposed in the case.
The lead to the case was provided by the National Unemployment Fraud Task Force onward to the investigative team in Western Washington.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI investigated the case with assistance from U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) and the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General (DOL-OIG), with the Washington State Employment Security Division (ESD), the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), and the Small Business Administration (SBA) also contributing.
- The Assistant United States Attorneys, Cindy Chang and Seth Wilkinson of the Western District of Washington. DOJ’s Office of International Affairs are the prosecutors of the case.
