Nigerian Man Abidemi Rufai Arrested In The US For $650 Million Unemployment Fraud + Other Crimes

A Nigerian man (Allegedly to be the aide of a serving Nigerian governor)Abidemi Rufai ,suspected in Washington state’s $650 million unemployment fraud was arrested Friday at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport by federal agents as he allegedly attempted to leave the country.

Abidemi Rufai 42, of Lekki, Nigeria, appeared in federal court Saturday 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 during the COVID-19 pandemic last year.


He is scheduled for a detention hearing Wednesday. The case will be prosecuted in federal court in Tacoma.

He was represented by an assistant federal public defender at Saturday’s hearing.
His arrest comes almost a year to the day after ESD officials announced they were temporarily suspending unemployment benefit payments after discovering that criminals had used stolen Social Security numbers and other personal information to file bogus claims for federal and state unemployment benefits.

Rufai, who used the alias Sandy Tang, is also suspected of defrauding unemployment programs in Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Federal officials acknowledged that Rufai’s presence in the United States probably was unusual in the unemployment fraud scheme. Many of the fraudulent claims that hit the ESD were likely filed from outside the United States, according to the complaint.

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

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

Thanks to a feature of Gmail, account holders can create dozens of additional email addresses simply adding one or more periods to the original address. Because the Gmail system doesn’t recognize periods, any emails sent to those so-called dot variant addresses are all routed to the inbox of the original Gmail address.


In Rufai’s case, his original email address — Sandytangy58@gmail.com — was expanded to include dot variants such as san.dyta.ngy58@gmail.com and sa.ndyt.a.ngy58@gmail.com, according to the federal complaint.

Rufai used the dot variant addresses to create multiple accounts in the Washington state system that authenticates online users of government services, the complaint alleges. Rufai was then able to file for unemployment benefits with the ESD using stolen personal identities of real Washington residents, the complaint said.

Because emails sent by the agency to the dot variants all went to Rufai’s Gmail account, Rufai could easily monitor all ESD correspondence regarding each claim, according to the complaint.


In January, a federal judge issued a warrant to Google, which operates Gmail, allowing investigators to search Rufai’s Gmail account, according to the complaint. Investigators found more than 1,000 emails from the ESD, including emails the agency sent allowing new claimants to activate their accounts.

Investigators also found around 100 emails from other states’ unemployment systems and from Green Dot, an online payment system reportedly used for stolen unemployment benefits, the complaint said.

The email and banking tactics allegedly used by Rufai appear to link him with the Nigerian crime organization known as Scattered Canary, according to an expert who has studied the group.


Rufai’s alleged schemes extended well beyond unemployment fraud, according to the complaint. Investigators found “substantial evidence” in Rufai’s Gmail account “that the user was actively engaged in stealing and retaining the personal identifying information of American citizens,” the complaint alleges.

Investigators found numerous emails with file attachments containing thousands of bank and credit card numbers, birth dates and other personal identifying information, images of driver’s licenses, and “a very large volume” of tax returns of U.S. taxpayers, the complaint alleges.

Investigators determined that Rufai arrived in the United States on Feb. 19, 2020, and left on Aug. 9, 2020, “and was therefore apparently present in the United States during the period of the fraud,” according to the complaint.

Bank records show that between March 3 and Aug. 2, 2020, $288,825 was deposited from multiple sources, including Green Dot, into a Citibank checking account in Rufai’s name, according to the complaint and federal officials. Additional funds were transferred by the ESD to the account of a second individual, identified in the complaint as C.S., who reportedly filed unemployment claims using Rufai’s Gmail account. That individual also filed claims for unemployment benefits in other states.

According to federal officials, Rufai had reportedly returned to the United States at some point after his August departure. Federal officials became aware that Rufai intended to leave the United States via JFK Airport in New York on Friday evening and obtained an arrest warrant.

According to the U.S. attorney in Seattle, the case involves wire fraud, which is punishable by up to 30 years in prison in crimes involving benefits “paid in connection to a presidentially declared disaster or emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The case was investigated by the FBI, with the assistance of multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, as well as the cooperation of the ESD.

According to a recent report by the state auditor’s office, fraudsters filed tens of thousands of bogus claims worth $646.8 million. (Not all of the impostor claims were paid; many were stopped by the ESD before funds went out.) Of that, the state has recovered $370 million, according to the audit.

from seattletimes.com

*Oga you know say your hand no clean, wetin carry you enter America again? ah ah!!!