Suspect in Washington state unemployment fraud was a senior Nigerian government aide

SEATTLE – Abidemi Rufai, the Nigerian citizen accused of stealing more than $350,000 as part of Washington state’s $650 million unemployment fraud last year, reportedly was also a government official in his home state of Ogun.

According to European and African media accounts, Rufai was a senior special assistant on housing in the Nigerian state of Ogun and an aide to Ogun Governor Dapo Abiodun.

Rufai was arrested Friday evening by federal agents at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport as he prepared to travel to Nigeria, according to federal law enforcement officials.

Rufai, of Lekki, Nigeria, appeared in federal court in New York on Saturday on charges that he used the identities of more than 100 Washington residents to file bogus unemployment claims with the Washington state Employment Security Department (ESD) during the COVID-19 pandemic last year, according to the federal complaint.

The complaint alleges that Rufai, 42, arrived in the United States on Feb. 19, 2020, and left on Aug. 9, 2020, “and was therefore apparently present in the United States during the period of the fraud.”

Rufai has been suspended from his government position in Ogun, according to media accounts.

“We received the very disturbing news of the arrest of one of the governor’s political appointees, Mr. Abidemi Rufai, in New York over alleged unemployment benefits and fraud in the United States, this morning,” said Kunle Somorin, Abiodun’s chief press secretary, according to the Nigerian newspaper The Vanguard.

“While the governor cannot be held responsible for the actions of a full-grown adult, especially outside the jurisdiction of Ogun State and Nigeria, he has since suspended the suspect from office to enable him to answer the charges leveled against him,” Somorin told the Vanguard.

On an Instagram account, since made private, Rufai posted photos mentioning his government position. He also shared photos of his candidacy for the Nigerian House of Representatives in 2019, which included flyers with the slogan “Ready and Committed to Serve with Trust and Ethics.”

Rufai also owned a sports betting company called Ecobet, according to a profile in a Nigerian business magazine, which described him as “a young business turk,” “a philanthropist of note” and a “gregarious and enterprising dude.”

Rufai was arrested almost a year to the day after ESD officials announced the temporary suspension of unemployment benefit payments, following the discovery that criminals had used stolen Social Security numbers and other personal information to file bogus claims for federal and state unemployment benefits.

Washington was among the first to be hit by a wave of fraud that would eventually strike dozens of states and siphon off billions of dollars in federal aid meant for pandemic victims.

Federal investigators initially identified Rufai through a single Gmail account he used to file 102 claims for pandemic-related unemployment benefits from the ESD, as well as claims at programs in other states, according to the complaint.

Thanks to a feature of Gmail, account holders can create dozens of additional email addresses simply adding one or more periods to the original address. Each of those addresses could then be used to file for benefits in Washington and other states.

According to the complaint, unemployment benefits from fraudulent claims were transferred by ESD and other state unemployment agencies to online payment platforms such as Green Dot, as well as to bank accounts operated by accomplices known as “money mules.”

Bank records show that between March 3 and Aug. 2, 2020, $288,825 was deposited from multiple sources, including Green Dot, into a Citibank checking account in Rufai’s name, according to the complaint and federal officials. Additional funds were transferred by the ESD to the account of a second individual, the complaint states.

The email and banking tactics allegedly used by Rufai appear to link him with a Nigerian crime organization known as Scattered Canary, which is thought to have orchestrated much of the unemployment fraud, according to an expert who has studied the group.

In August – around the time that Rufai departed from the United States and after investigators say the bulk of the funds had been deposited to his bank account – Rufai was appointed to the post of senior special assistant on housing in Ogun, according to a report by Michael Orodare, a Nigerian journalist with Neusroom.

News of Rufai’s arrest and suspension touched off a flurry of posts on Nigerian social media bemoaning the country’s reported problems with corruption. Nigeria was ranked 149th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Index.

Investigators say Rufai returned to the United States at some point after his August departure.

Federal officials acknowledged that Rufai’s presence in the United States probably was unusual in the unemployment fraud scheme. Many of the fraudulent claims that hit the ESD were likely filed from outside the United States, according to the complaint.

At the peak of the fraud last May, up to 13,000 fraudulent unemployment claims were being created per day. Nigeria was the fourth-highest source of internet traffic accessing Washington’s unemployment system, up from 64th previously, according to internal ESD communications released under public records laws.

After initially paying out many of the fake claims, Washington officials moved to block the foreign scammers – at one point blocking all internet traffic from outside of the U.S. and Canada to the ESD website.

In January, a federal judge issued a warrant to Google, which operates Gmail, allowing investigators to search Rufai’s Gmail account, according to the complaint.

Although the Gmail account used Rufai’s alias – Sandy Tang – a Nigerian-based cellphone number linked to the Gmail account was traced to Rufai’s 2019 U.S. visa application, according to the complaint.

Late last week, federal officials learned that Rufai was scheduled to fly on Friday night from JFK to Amsterdam with a final destination of Lagos, Nigeria, according to a federal affidavit filed Saturday. An arrest warrant for Rufai was issued Friday.

Federal agents arrested Rufai after he arrived at JFK at around 7:45 Friday evening. Rufai was carrying a Nigerian passport and other identifying documentation, and federal agents were able to recognize him from his visa application photograph and his social media accounts, the affidavit states.

Rufai is scheduled for a detention hearing Wednesday in New York. Federal law enforcement officials have requested that Rufai be transferred to the Western District of Washington for trial, and the case will be prosecuted in federal court in Tacoma.

According to the U.S. attorney in Seattle, the case involves wire fraud, which is punishable by up to 30 years in prison in crimes involving benefits “paid in connection to a presidentially declared disaster or emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The case was investigated by the FBI, with the assistance of multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, as well as the cooperation of the ESD.

According to a recent report by the state auditor’s office, fraudsters filed tens of thousands of bogus claims worth $646.8 million. (Not all of the impostor claims were paid; many were stopped by the ESD before funds went out.) Of that, the state has recovered $370 million, according to the audit.