A U.S.-based Nigerian, Adepoju Salako, has pleaded guilty to and was sentenced to a year and a half in prison for committing wire fraud through a 2022 Permanent Fund Dividend fraud scheme.

Mr Salako pleaded guilty to seven counts of wire fraud and was sentenced on Tuesday.

Mr Salako’s prison sentence will run concurrently with a related COVID-19 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.

According to court documents, between January and February 2022, Mr Salako, 33, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, devised a scheme to defraud the Alaska Department of Revenue PFD programme.

Specifically, Mr Salako fraudulently obtained the personal identifying information for legitimate Alaskan residents and submitted seven separate applications to the Alaska DOR to obtain their PFD funds.

Mr Salako was never an Alaskan resident and had never traveled to Alaska up until his arrival in the state for his sentencing in this matter.

Court documents detailed that Mr Salako created new email accounts that he controlled for each legitimate Alaska resident whose PII he fraudulently obtained.

Using the PII, Mr Salako gained control of at least seven already established ‘myAlaska’ online accounts—the platform Alaska residents use to apply for the PFD.

Once inside the accounts, Mr Salako changed the account information to route communications from ‘myAlaska’ directly to the email accounts he controlled for each individual.

Mr Salako also changed each applicant’s bank information to route the PFD payments to bank accounts he controlled.

Court documents further explained that Mr Salako tried to shield his identity and location by using a virtual private network to appear as though six of the seven application submissions were submitted from an internet protocol address in Alaska.

The other application was submitted using an IP address in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Records from Mr Salako’s personal email account showed logins from the same Philadelphia IP address.

The State of Alaska determined the applications to be fraudulent and denied the applications.

In 2022, the DOR, which administers the PFD programme, paid $3,284 to each eligible PFD applicant.

But for the DOR’s diligent review of PFD applications, Mr Salako would have successfully defrauded Alaska and the seven identity theft victims of $22,988.

“Mr Salako spent considerable time planning and perpetrating his scheme to defraud the Alaska PFD,” said U.S. attorney Michael Heyman for the District of Alaska. “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.”