A Nigerian national has pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to charges stemming from his involvement with a cross-country unemployment insurance fraud scheme.

Akinpelumi Olawale Oyewusi, 60, of Hyattsville, Maryland, is charged with wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft in connection with the white-collar crime.

According to his guilty plea, beginning in September 2020 and continuing through at least March 2021, Mr Oyewusi and others conspired to defraud state workforce authorities, including the Maryland Department of Labour, to obtain fraudulent unemployment insurance funds.

Mr Oyewusi and his co-conspirators used the identities of real people to obtain fraudulent unemployment insurance from Maryland and other states in the US. After accessing these unemployment insurance funds, Mr Oyewusi transferred and withdrew the stolen funds through electronic transfers and ATM withdrawals.

Mr Oyewusi and his co-conspirators victimised individuals through identity theft, the state workforce authorities through stealing unemployment insurance funds, and a financial institution by misdirecting the fund transfers and fraudulent transactions.

He was directly connected to at least $415,874.63 of actual losses and personally obtained at least $25,000 through his participation in the scheme.

The co-conspirators used victims’ personally identifiable information to submit false unemployment insurance claims to various state workforce authorities—including the MD-DOL and the California Employment Development Department. The claims contained victims’ real social security numbers and names but falsified their unemployment status and prior work history to obtain the funds.

Co-conspirators elected to receive the funds through bank-issued debit cards linked to a bank account. Mr Oyewusi and his co-conspirators ensured that the bank mailed the debit cards to one of several addresses in Maryland and elsewhere.

He then accessed the funds from the fraudulently opened unemployment insurance claims. After obtaining his portion of the fraudulent proceeds, he transferred the funds downstream to other members of the conspiracy.

Throughout the scheme, Mr Oyewusi received incoming mail alerts from the U.S. Postal Service, allowing him to track the fraudulent unemployment insurance debit cards. Mr Oyewusi also personally withdrew thousands of dollars from the unemployment insurance debit cards in the victims’ names.

Mr Oyewusi withdrew the maximum amount allowed from each card and would then use the same cards to make additional withdrawals at later dates.

Between December 2020 and March 2021, at least 18 ATM photos captured Mr Oyewusi withdrawing $18,000 from the debit cards issued to six different fraudulent claims. Bank records indicate that Mr Oyewusi withdrew approximately $69,000 from the same debit cards throughout the scheme.

Mr Oyewusi will be sentenced on December 3 at 2 p.m.