45-year-old Abidemi Rufai, a resident of Lekki, Nigeria, has been sentenced in a U.S. District Court in Tacoma to 5 years in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for his attempt to steal nearly $2.4 million from the United States government, including approximately $500,000 in pandemic-related unemployment benefits, announced U.S. Attorney Nick Brown.
Abidermi Rufai was arrested in the US last year after been tracked down by the FBI.
As at the time of his US arrest, Abidermi Rufai was the Special Assistant to the Governor of Nigeria’s Ogun State. He admitted a long history of using stolen identities to defraud U.S. disaster programs, including aid for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and file fraudulent U.S. tax returns.