New York man posed as health mannequin to con males in romance scams, steal COVID unemployment cash from Massachusetts, different states, feds say

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Fraudulent Gmail Accounts, Fake Driver’s License, and a Fitness Model’s Stolen Identity: These are the means by which a New Yorker is accused of running hundreds of thousands of dollars of unemployment and romance scams and targeted residents across the country, Massachusetts detailed to Oregon, federal agencies.

In court files revealed this week, the FBI alleged that Damilola Adepoju, the 29-year-old Brooklyn-born man accused of being at the center of the program, and a co-conspirator, filed fraudulent unemployment claims against coronavirus pandemics and applied for disaster relief loans the USA Small Business Administration (SBA) using stolen personal information.

In some cases, according to the court records, Adepoju and the co-conspirator have attacked elderly victims through romance scams and used victims’ personal information to launder the proceeds of their plans.

Adepoju was charged with wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering and aggravated identity theft who appeared in federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, the US prosecutor said in a statement. He is detained pending a hearing Thursday and will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.

The Brooklyn man is also accused of using Fini Shoes, the New York-based shoe retailer he founded in 2018, to launder funds to divert the money to other financial accounts inside and outside the United States, according to prosecutors.

“The investigation has found over $ 600,000 in actual or attempted losses due to fraudulent unemployment [Economic Injury Disaster Loan] Payments, ”wrote Michael Livingood, a special agent for the Economic Crimes Squad at the FBI’s Boston branch, in an affidavit.

According to the affidavit, WhatsApp messages between Adepoju and an unnamed co-conspirator from December 2018 to December 2020 indicated that the scammers were talking about filing fraudulent US jobless claims with personal information, getting money through romance scams, and getting the proceeds from their programs through Payment applications such as Green Dot and PayPal.

Livingood said the FBI discovered during their investigation that Adepoju, a Nigerian national, and the other scammer had transferred some of their proceeds from US bank accounts to Nigerian accounts.

They are also accused of discussing methods of disguising their identities while conducting these activities, primarily through the use of IP addresses derived from virtual private network (VPN) services and phone numbers associated with multiple SIM cards are.

The Nigerian national and co-conspirator allegedly used the email address vickyann85@gmail.com and variants of the alias “Vickyann85” to submit the fraudulent claims and carry out the romance scams, the FBI found.

According to Livingood, the FBI’s Boston branch received records from the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA) about a number of fraudulent unemployment-related cases around June 8th last year.

When checking the records, it became clear, according to the authorities, that the fraudsters were using a function of Gmail, in which Google does not recognize any periods to the left of the @ gmail.com domain.

That feature, according to the FBI, enabled Adepoju and his co-conspirator to use numerous variants of the Vickyann85 account to file and track fraudulent online jobless claims using a single email address.

Livingood noted that the Vickyann85 account was reportedly used to file jobless claims in 15 states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington . The claims represent losses of at least $ 489,099, according to the FBI agent.

Via WhatsApp, Damilola and the co-conspirator are accused of talking about filing the fraudulent jobless claims filing in Massachusetts, the affidavit said.

For example, on May 14, 2020, the co-conspirator allegedly told Damilola that they needed a lot of Green Dot and SIM cards from a “new state”. When questioned by Damilola, the co-conspirator is accused of having identified the state as “MA”.

“This is a rich state,” Damilola allegedly replied before asking, “How many cards do you need?”

Records from the DUA showed that between May 11 and May 24, 2020, the Vickyann85 account was used to file 48 Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) applications, many with phone numbers on SIM cards and directed payments to Green Dot- Cards were sent to the authorities.

The FBI’s analysis of the Vickyann85 account also found it was used for romance scams that accused Damilola and the co-conspirator of posing as a real-life professional fitness trainer and model who lives in Austin, Texas, the federal agency said.

On December 3 last year, Livingood interviewed the model and her husband who, according to the FBI, confirmed that neither she nor her companies were linked to the Vickyann85 account.

The fake account has been used since at least 2014 to share photos from the real model’s Instagram account and to notify more than 300 people through Google Chats.

“These chats show that after a rapport has been built, some people are asked to provide personal information, bank account information and ultimately financial assistance in the form of cash, MoneyGram payments and virtual gift cards,” Livingood said in the affidavit.

An 86-year-old South Carolina man was one of the victims of the romance scams led by the Vickyann85 account since around 2015, according to law enforcement. Damilola and the other scammer are accused of posing as “Vicky”, telling the victim she was an orphan from Europe, and claiming she now lives as a fitness trainer in New York.

On several occasions, on instructions from the scammers, the FBI announced that the victim had sent them MoneyGram payments and gift cards.

In July 2020, according to the court records, the victim even deposited fraudulent unemployment benefits of $ 117,532.38 into his account after being told from the Vickyann85 account that the money was related to her fitness business, according to court records.

At the direction of the alleged fraudsters, the man took the money from his account and sent it from FedEx to an address under the first name Samuel in New York City around August 17, 2020. Damilola lived one floor above the address at the time, the authorities said.

Investigators found that their review of WhatsApp messages sent by Damilola showed pictures of fake driver’s licenses he had ordered. They had his picture, but the names of others, including Samuel, according to the FBI.