By Victoria Ojeme
A Senior Special Assistant to Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, has been arrested by the FBI over $350,000 employment fraud during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.
Abidemi Rufai is accused of filing 102 jobless claims in Washington which is part of the $646 million the state lost to unemployment fraud in 2020.
He was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York before boarding a flight to Amsterdam. Rufai was arrested on allegations of wire fraud.
“This is the first, but will not be the last, significant arrest in our ongoing investigation of Washington Employment Security Department (ESD) fraud,” Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman said in a statement.
Between March and October 2020, Rufai allegedly submitted dozens of unemployment claims using stolen identities, trying to get ESD to pay out more than $350,000 in benefits, according to court documents.
Rufai is just one of the people investigators believe filed…
Source: Vanguard Newspaper
