Baltimore, MD – Cheikh Ahmet Tidiane Cisse, a 43-year-old resident of Baltimore, Maryland, has been charged with a scheme to obtain over $236,000 in Social Security benefits by allegedly submitting fictitious claims.
A federal grand jury returned a 14-count indictment against Cisse on April 3, 2019, for his role in the scheme, which occurred between July 2018 and March 2019. Cisse, a Claims Specialist employed by the Social Security Administration (SSA), used his position to create fictitious identities within the SSA’s social security number database to file fictitious claims for benefits.
The indictment alleges that Cisse used both fictitious identities and the identities of actual individuals to file the fraudulent claims and stole or attempted to steal over $236,000 from SSA. Cisse allegedly input false information into SSA systems indicating that he had witnessed original documents, such as birth certificates, and marriage and divorce decrees, when in fact he had not.
In one instance, when SSA withheld payment due to suspected fraud, Cisse contacted SSA’s payment center and falsely relayed that the purported beneficiary had called inquiring about the whereabouts of the payment, which caused the payment center to release the funds. Cisse allegedly directed payments on the fraudulent claims into accounts he controlled, then spent the funds through cash withdrawals and retail purchases.
If convicted, Cisse faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each of nine counts of wire fraud; a maximum of 10 years in prison for Social Security fraud and for theft of government property; and a mandatory two years in prison, consecutive to any other sentence imposed, for each of three counts of aggravated identity theft.
According to the indictment, Cisse caused SSA to pay approximately $87,000 in fraudulent claims through direct deposit, issue approximately $46,000 in checks that were never negotiated, and authorize approximately $103,000 in claims that SSA halted before payments were issued.
Key Facts
- State: Maryland
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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