By Ado Oyeyemi
A 33-year-old Nigerian-American, Adepoju Salako, has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in the United States for attempting to fraudulently obtain more than $22,000 through Alaska’s oil wealth dividend scheme.
Salako was sentenced by a federal court in Anchorage, Alaska, after pleading guilty to seven counts of wire fraud.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska disclosed in a statement on Friday that the convict orchestrated a scheme aimed at hijacking the online accounts of seven Alaska residents in a bid to divert their Permanent Fund Dividend payments into bank accounts under his control.
Court documents revealed that between January and February 2022, Salako obtained the personal details of legitimate residents and used the information to file seven fraudulent applications with the Alaska Department of Revenue.
The Permanent Fund Dividend is an annual payment distributed to eligible Alaska residents from the state’s oil revenue savings.
Investigators said Salako gained access to the victims’ “myAlaska” accounts, changed the registered email addresses to ones linked to him and altered payment details to redirect the funds.
Authorities added that he used a Virtual Private Network to conceal his location, making six of the fraudulent applications appear as though they originated from Alaska.
The seventh application was reportedly traced to a Philadelphia IP address linked to his personal email account.
The Alaska Department of Revenue, however, detected the irregularities and blocked all seven applications before any payment could be processed.
Had the fraud succeeded, Salako would have received a total of $22,988, representing seven dividend payments valued at $3,284 each.
Reacting to the conviction, U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman said the convict carefully planned the scheme but failed due to the vigilance of investigators.
“Thanks to the great work of the Alaska Department of Revenue and FBI, he didn’t succeed; but even attempting to defraud the PFD will not be tolerated and could result in federal prison,” Heyman said.
Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Anchorage Field Office, Matthew Schlegel, described the dividend programme as one designed to benefit Alaskans and not criminals seeking to exploit it through fraud and identity theft.
Officials of the Alaska Department of Revenue also said the case should serve as a warning to individuals attempting to manipulate the programme through fraudulent means.
The 18-month prison term will run concurrently with a separate six-and-a-half-year federal sentence earlier handed down against Salako in Colorado over COVID-19 relief fraud and international money laundering offences.
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He was also ordered to pay $2.5m in restitution in the Colorado case.
