A U.S. grand jury in Seattle has charged Pan Ocean Oil Chukwuemeka Onyegbula with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and multiple counts of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman announced the indictment in a Department of Justice statement. According to the announcement, Mr Onyegbula, aka Phillip Carter, is currently detained in Nigeria.

In the indictment and an unsealed criminal complaint sworn June 6, 2021, law enforcement linked an email account belonging to Mr Onyegbula but using the name ‘Phillip Carter’ to at least 253 fraudulent unemployment insurance filings in Washington, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Nevada, Rhode Island, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Nearly $290,000 was paid out in unemployment claims, said the DOJ.

The U.S. authorities also accused Mr Onyegbula and his co-conspirators of accessing the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) page on the Small Business Administration’s website and submitted applications for EIDLs using the stolen PII of residents of Washington and other states. Nearly $54,000 was paid out in fraudulent disaster loans.

Mr Onyegbula allegedly used variations of a single email address in a manner intended to evade automatic detection by fraud systems.

“By using this practice, Onyegbula made it appear that each claim was connected to a different email account,” said the DOJ. “The email account used for fraud was linked to Onyegbula by various electronic evidence such as phone numbers and IP addresses. The email account contained information such as a visa application receipt, banking information, and homework assignments by Onyegbula’s son.”

The cyber evidence also included dozens of tax return information for U.S. citizens, said the authorities. Evidence gathered indicated Mr Onyegbula was employed as an IT engineer with Pan Ocean Oil Corporation Nigeria Limited and a graduate of the University of Benin. His CV on LinkedIn showed he had been with the oil firm since 2009.

“Conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud is punishable by up to 30 years in prison when the offence relates to benefits paid in connection with a presidentially-declared disaster or emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic,” said the DOJ.

It added that aggravated identity theft was punishable by a mandatory minimum two-year sentence.