Nigerian-American Alaska fraud scheme ends in prison sentence after failed attempt to steal $22,000 from dividend programme

A 33-year-old Nigerian-American man, Adepoju Salako, has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for attempting to steal more than $22,000 from Alaska’s oil wealth dividend programme by hijacking the online accounts of state residents.

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According to a statement released on Friday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska, Adepoju Salako pleaded guilty before a federal court in Anchorage to seven counts of wire fraud linked to the scheme.

Court documents cited in the release showed that between January and February 2022, Adepoju Salako obtained the personal identifying information of seven legitimate Alaska residents and used it to manipulate applications connected to the state’s Permanent Fund Dividend programme.

The Nigerian-American Alaska fraud scheme involved gaining unauthorised access to established “myAlaska” online accounts, the platform residents use to apply for annual dividend payments funded through the state’s oil revenue savings.

Investigators said the defendant changed the email addresses attached to the accounts and redirected payment information to bank accounts under his control.

Authorities further disclosed that Adepoju Salako used a Virtual Private Network to disguise his location, making six of the fraudulent applications appear to originate from internet addresses within Alaska.

The seventh application, however, was submitted from an IP address in Philadelphia, which investigators linked to his personal email activity.

The Alaska Department of Revenue detected the suspicious activity and blocked all seven applications before any payments were made.

Officials said the defendant would have received $22,988 had the fraud succeeded, based on the 2022 dividend payment of $3,284 for each hijacked account.

U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman described the operation as a deliberate and calculated attempt to defraud the programme.

“Mr. Salako spent considerable time planning and perpetrating his scheme to defraud the Alaska PFD,” Michael Heyman said.

“Thanks to the great work of the Alaska Department of Revenue and FBI, he didn’t succeed.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation also praised the investigation, saying safeguards within the system helped expose the fraud despite attempts to conceal identities and locations.

Special Agent in Charge Matthew Schlegel said the programme was intended to support eligible Alaskans and not criminals seeking financial gain through deception and identity theft.

Scott Stair, investigations manager at the Alaska Department of Revenue’s Criminal Investigations Unit, said the case should serve as a strong warning to anyone attempting to exploit the dividend system.

The 18-month prison sentence will run concurrently with another federal sentence previously imposed on Adepoju Salako in Colorado over a separate COVID-19 relief fraud and international money laundering case.

In that earlier case, the defendant received a six-and-a-half-year prison term and was ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.

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The Nigerian-American Alaska fraud scheme highlights increasing concerns among U.S. authorities over cyber-enabled financial crimes involving identity theft and digital account manipulation.