Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the Ogun State Governor, Abidemi Rufai faces at least a 30-year jail term in addition to a $1 million fine if convicted of fraud in the US.
The 30-year jail term is the penalty for wire fraud according to the United States Department of Justice. This is more so when it relates to benefits paid in connection with a presidentially-declared disaster like the Covid19 pandemic.
Rufai was, however, the Deputy Director-General of the Dapo Abiodun gubernatorial Campaign Organisation in the last election in Ogun State.
He also contested as House of Representatives member under the APC for Ijebu Central Federal Constituency.
The senior government aide was arrested on Friday at the JFK Airport in New York, United States of America on criminal complaint of wire fraud for his scheme.
According to the Washington State Employment Security Department’s acting US Attorney, Tessa M Gorman, the fraud involved a total sum of N350,000 in unemployment benefits from the Washington State Employment Security Department.
Gorman added that, “Since the first reports to our office in April 2020, we have worked diligently with a federal law enforcement team to track down 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 the ESD fraud.
Also known as sandy Tang, 42-year-old Abidemi Rufai is one of the flashy young and “upwardly mobile big boys” of Lekki, one of the most expensive residential areas in Nigeria and indeed Africa.
The criminal complaint alleges that Rufai used the stolen identities of more than 100 Washington residents to file fraudulent claims with the ESD for pandemic-related unemployment benefits.
He is scheduled for a detention hearing today, 19th May, 2021.
How Rufai succeeded with the fraud:
According to the Foundation for Investigative Journalism, ““Rufai used variations of a single e-mail address in a manner intended to evade automatic detection by fraud systems. By using this practice, Rufai made it appear that each claim was connected with a different email account.
“The secret behind such wizardry is often ‘Gmail dot’ feature. Gmail users are at liberty to add or remove dot (s) from their email address. If crazyjourno@gmail.com was a valid email address, its owner would receive messages sent to cra.zy.journo@gmail.com. The same user would receive e-mails sent to c.r.a.z.y.j.o.u.r.n.o@gmail.com.  Simply put, the inclusion of dots in a Gmail address is immaterial.
“However, most emails and websites treat such altered addresses as different accounts. Netflix, for instance, would accept the creation of an account with each of the Google dot addresses above.”
Read also:
SSA To Ogun State Governor, Abidemi Rufai Arrested for Fraud in New York (video)
30-Year Jail Term in US
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