A Nigerian man, Adepoju Salako, has been sentenced to a year and a half in prison for committing wire fraud through a 2022 Permanent Fund Dividend fraud scheme in the United States.
Salako, who lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hatched a plan to defraud the Alaska Department of Revenue PFD programme. The 33-year-old was sentenced on Tuesday after court papers showed his fraudulent activity between January and February 2022. The Department of Justice disclosed the case in a press statement on Friday.
“Salako obtained the personal identifying information for legitimate Alaskan residents and submitted seven separate applications to the Alaska DOR to obtain their PFD funds.
“Salako was never an Alaskan resident and had never traveled to Alaska up until his arrival in the state for his sentencing in this matter.
“Court documents detail that Salako created new email accounts that he controlled for each legitimate Alaska resident whose PII he fraudulently obtained,” the report said.
Salako pleaded guilty to seven counts of wire fraud. His one-and-a-half-year sentence will run at the same time as a related case in the District of Colorado, involving COVID relief funds and international money laundering. In that Colorado case, he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison and ordered to pay $2.5m in restitution to the victims.
