26-Year-Old Nigerian Who Used COVID-19 To Claim Over $2.2M Bags Four Years Imprisonment

A US-based Nigerian man, Olamide Yusuf Bakare, has been sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 26-year-old, who pleaded guilty in January 2023, was sentenced on Tuesday, July 25, in Maryland by U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert.

According to court documents, between June 2020 and July 2021, Bakare, along with co-defendants Quazeem Owolabi Adeyinka and Ayodeji Jonathan Sangode, and others, participated in a conspiracy to submit fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI) and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims to the States of Maryland and California.

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The United States Attorney’s Office, Eastern district of California, in a statement said more than 200 individual applications were filed with the California Employment Development Department (EDD) and the Maryland Department of Labor (MDOL) indicating that the claimants’ address was the Hyattsville, Maryland, apartment that the defendants shared.

“During the conspiracy, the conspirators obtained the personally identifiable information (PII) of persons who were not eligible for UI or PUA benefits or who did not authorize the conspirators to act on their behalf with respect to seeking such benefits. Such PII included names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers.

The conspirators then used the PII to submit dozens of fr@udulent UI and PUA claims to EDD and MDOL under the putative claimants’ identities and without their authorization.

The underlying benefit applications contained fr@udulent representations. These actions caused EDD and MDOL to approve at least 142 fr@udulent UI and PUA claims.

For each approved claim, EDD and MDOL deposited benefit funds into a debit card account administered by Bank of America and under the identity of the putative claimant. Bank of America then mailed at least 142 unauthorized debit cards to addresses under the control of the defendants.