Nigerian Man Pleads Guilty to $10 Million Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Fraud Scheme

BOSTON – A Nigerian man has pleaded guilty in connection with a conspiracy to fraudulently obtain at least $10 million in COVID-19 unemployment benefits.

Yomi Jones Olayeye, a/k/a “Sabbie,” 40, of Lagos, Nigeria, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy and one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Senior United States District Judge Mark L. Wolf scheduled sentencing for Aug. 13, 2025. Olayeye was arrested in August 2024 upon arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport and remains in federal custody.  

Between March and July 2020, Olayeye and, allegedly others, defrauded three pandemic assistance programs administrated by the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance and other states’ unemployment insurance agencies: traditional unemployment insurance (UI), Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC).

Olayeye, and allegedly his co-conspirators, used personally identifiable information (PII) they purchased over criminal internet forums to apply for UI, PUA and FPUC – falsely representing themselves to be eligible state residents affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Olayeye and his co-conspirators allegedly used the same fraudulently obtained PII to open U.S. bank accounts and prepaid debit card accounts to receive the assistance payments. Olayeye, and allegedly his co-conspirators, recruited U.S.-based account holders to receive and transfer the fraud proceeds via cash transfer applications. Olayeye, and allegedly his co-conspirators, then used the fraudulent proceeds to purchase Bitcoin via online marketplaces. Olayeye, and allegedly his co-conspirators, concealed the conspiracy’s connection to Nigeria by leasing Internet Protocol addresses assigned to computers located in the United States for use in the fraudulent transactions.

In total, Olayeye and his co-conspirators allegedly applied for at least $10 million in fraudulent UI, PUA and FPUC from Massachusetts, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Montana, Maine, Ohio and Washington and received more than $1.5 million in assistance to which they were not entitled.  

The charges of wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy provide for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, forfeiture and restitution. The charge of aggravated identity theft calls for a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison to be served consecutive to any sentence imposed on the wire fraud charge. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Special Agent in Charge Randy Maloney of the U.S. Secret Service Boston Field Office; Jonathan Mellone, Special Agent in Charge of the Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General; and James Crowley, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division made the announcement today.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Seth B. Kosto and Meghan C. Cleary of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit are prosecuting the case.

On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus and https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus/combatingfraud. 
   
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline via the NCDF Web Complaint Form.

The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The remaining defendants presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.