$650 million fraud: Fear grips associates of arrested Bidemi Rufai in America

The arrest of Abidemi Rufai , a suspended Special Assistant to Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State by the American Government, is now causing fear among some of his close associates in United States of America(USA).

Penpushing reports that, the fear is said to be pronounced among those sighted with him in a viral video where the suspected fraudster was alleged seen spending dollars at will at a party involving a number of ladies and other friends.

The series of controversial videos, now being circulated on social media, are believed to show Rufai seen spraying money like ‘water’, while a musician was profusely praise singing him and some of his friends at the lavishly organized parties.

Penpushing further reports that, one of the controversial videos is faulted by some people, who claimed they were not sure if it was Rufai who was spraying dollars, but other viewers declared that he was the arrested man sighted in the video.

The findings, however, revealed that, all those sighted at that party in the video maybe be on the watchlist of the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI), a development said to be giving them sleepless nights.

Penpushing also reports that, many of the close associates and guests at the party are now said to be running helter skelter, entertaining fear of what might be their fates, while sources informed that some of them had gone underground and disassociating themselves from the suspended Governor’s aide.

The suspect, it will be recalled was arrested at the New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport over alleged roles in Washington State’s $650 million unemployment fraud, and if convicted, according to American law, he risks 30 years jail.

Penpushing reports that the suspect was returning to Nigeria when he was arrested by federal agents of the United States of America (USA) on Friday, and was charged to Federal Court on Saturday.

The arrested Nigerian said to be resident of Lekki in Lagos State, but served under the administration of Governor of neigbouring State was arraigned  on charges that he used the identities of more than 100 Washington residents to steal more than $350,000 in unemployment benefits from the Washington state Employment Security Department (ESD) during the coronavirus pandemic last year.

Penpushing also reports that, Acting United States of America (U.S). Attorney for the Western District of Washington, Tessa Gorman, in a statement Monday said: “This is the first, but will not be the last, significant arrest in our ongoing investigation of ESD fraud,”

The federal complaint also provides a detailed glimpse into the scale of the pandemic-related fraud as well as the methods — some of them surprisingly unsophisticated — fraudsters used to pilfer unemployment systems in Washington and other states.

“I want to thank our partners in law enforcement for their continued efforts to hold criminals accountable for their attacks on our unemployment insurance system,”  Acting Commissioner Employment Security Department (ESD) Cami Feek said in a statement.

Penpushing reports that Rufai’s arrest comes almost a year to the day after ESD officials announced they were temporarily suspending benefits payments, and this, it was learnt, was  after discovering that criminals had used several stolen Social Security numbers and other personal information to file bogus claims for federal and state unemployment benefits.

The suspect, with nickname Sandy Tang, is also suspected of defrauding unemployment programs in Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Penpushing further reports that, investigation also found a massive cache of tax returns and other personal data and evidence that Rufai was allegedly involved in numerous other fraud schemes, while federal officials acknowledged that his presence in the United States probably was unusual in the unemployment fraud scheme.

The American authorities also offers a detailed explanation of how Rufai — and presumably others — allegedly bypassed security systems at ESD using a simple feature of Google’s free Gmail service.

Penpushing  also reports that the investigators initially identified Rufai through a single Gmail account he used to file 102 claims for pandemic-related unemployment benefits from ESD, as well as claims at programs in other states, according to the complaint.

The investigation revealed that, his original email address — [email protected] — was expanded to include dot variants such as [email protected] and [email protected], according to the federal complaint.

Penpushing reports that, the suspect used the dot variant addresses to create multiple accounts in the Washington state system that authenticates users of government services, and was  alleged to then filed for unemployment benefits with ESD, the complaint, using stolen personal identities of real Washington residents.

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