A 33 years old Nigerian-American man, Adepoju Salako, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for fraudulently attempting to steal over $22,000 from Alaska’s oil wealth dividend programme by hijacking the online accounts of seven state residents.
According to a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Alaska on Friday, Salako pleaded guilty to seven counts of wire fraud before a federal court in Anchorage, Alaska, on Tuesday.
According to court documents cited in the press release, Salako obtained the personal identifying information of legitimate Alaska residents between January and February 2022 and submitted seven separate applications to the Alaska Department of Revenue to redirect their Permanent Fund Dividend payments into bank accounts he controlled.
The Permanent Fund Dividend is an annual payment made to eligible Alaska residents from the state’s oil revenue savings.
To execute the scheme, Salako gained access to seven established “myAlaska” online accounts, the platform residents use to apply for the dividend, changed the email addresses linked to each account to ones he controlled and rerouted the payment details to his own bank accounts.
He also deployed a Virtual Private Network to disguise his location, making six of the seven applications appear to originate from an Alaska-based internet address.
The seventh was submitted from his Philadelphia IP address, the same address linked to his personal email logins.
The Alaska Department of Revenue detected the fraud and denied all seven applications. Had it not done so, Salako stood to collect $22,988, the 2022 dividend of $3,284 multiplied across the seven hijacked accounts.
U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman said, “Mr. Salako spent considerable time planning and perpetrating his scheme to defraud the Alaska PFD.
“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.”
Special Agent in Charge Matthew Schlegel of the FBI Anchorage Field Office said the dividend programme was designed for the benefit of Alaskans, not for exploitation.
“The Alaska PFD program is intended to benefit current and future generations of eligible Alaskans, not criminals like Salako who seek to exploit the program through fraud and identity theft.
“Despite efforts to mask his identity, Salako was identified through strong program safeguards and diligent investigative work in partnership with the Alaska Department of Revenue,” Schlegel said.
Scott Stair, investigations manager at the Alaska Department of Revenue’s Criminal Investigations Unit, said the case carried a broader warning.
“This case should send a clear message that stealing an identity to exploit the Permanent Fund Dividend will not be tolerated.
“The Department of Revenue remains committed to protecting Alaskans from financial fraud and holding accountable anyone who seeks to profit through deception,” Stair said.
Salako’s 18-month sentence will run concurrently with a separate six-and-a-half-year federal prison term handed down in Colorado over a COVID-19 relief fund fraud and international money laundering case, in which he was also ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.
