Adepoju Babatunde Salako, Wire Fraud, Alaska 2022
A 33-year-old man from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to 1.5 years in prison for his role in a 2022 Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) fraud scheme.
Adepoju Babatunde Salako, a Pennsylvania man, pleaded guilty to and was sentenced on Tuesday to a year and a half in prison for committing wire fraud through a 2022 PFD fraud scheme.
Between January and February 2022, Salako devised a scheme to defraud the Alaska Department of Revenue (DOR) PFD program.
Salako fraudulently obtained the personal identifying information (PII) 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 until his arrival in the state for his sentencing in this matter.
Salako created new email accounts that he controlled for each legitimate Alaska resident whose PII he fraudulently obtained.
Using the PII, Salako gained control of at least seven already established 'myAlaska' online accounts.
The State of Alaska determined the applications to be fraudulent and denied the applications.
Salako pleaded guilty to seven counts of wire fraud.
Salako's prison sentence will run concurrent to a related COVID relief fund and international money laundering case in the District of Colorado, in which he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison and ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution to the victims of his crimes.
Key Facts
- State: Alaska
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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