A federal jury has convicted Oluwaseun Adekoya of financial institution fraud conspiracy, cash laundering conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.
The case affords an in-depth take a look at a rising menace to banks and credit score unions: identity theft used to steal from clients’ residence fairness traces of credit score.
A two-and-a-half-week trial uncovered Adekoya because the ringleader of a complicated nationwide operation that defrauded monetary establishments throughout the United States and ended with a jury discovering him responsible on all 11 counts.
The fraud scheme: Targeting HELOCs and impersonation
From November 2021 to December 12, 2023, Adekoya orchestrated a sweeping scheme to steal identities, impersonate clients and take cash from their accounts, leading to over $1.5 million in precise losses and almost $3 million in tried losses, attorneys for the Department of Justice alleged.
His targets included a community of credit score unions, akin to Cap Com Federal Credit Union (now Broadview Federal Credit Union) in Albany.
Adekoya, working from his condo in New Jersey, targeted on acquiring publicly out there info, significantly relating to people’ residence fairness traces of credit score (HELOCs) at native credit score unions with substantial fairness.
Specifically, throughout the trial, the federal government introduced proof associated to CoreLogic data. CoreLogic sells advertising information about owners, together with transaction, lien and vesting info, in response to the corporate.
Adekoya utilized encrypted messaging platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp to accumulate personally identifiable info (PII), together with Social Security numbers, account numbers, and moms’ maiden names, for these recognized victims.
To execute the fraud, Adekoya provided his community of managers and lower-level “runners” with pretend driver’s licenses bearing victims’ PII however displaying pictures of the runners themselves.
He and his chief lieutenants — co-defendants David Daniyan and Kani Bassie, together with different managers like Davon Hunter, Christian Quivers, and Jermon Brooks — coached these runners on impersonate victims and fraudulently withdraw money, receive advances on credit score and safe checks from victims’ accounts.
Drivers, together with Akeem Balogun and Jerjuan Joyner, transported the runners to monetary establishments nationwide. Adekoya strategically shifted his focus geographically to evade regulation enforcement scrutiny.
Money laundering: Concealing ill-gotten features
Adekoya additionally ran a cash laundering conspiracy with David Daniyan and others. They used financial institution accounts underneath different people’ names to launder their important share of the fraud proceeds, in response to prosecutors.
Adekoya additionally reinvested a few of the stolen funds again into the legal enterprise, buying air and bus journey for co-conspirators, pretend driver’s licenses, and rental vehicles used to move employees to credit score unions.
For instance, one affidavit detailed Zelle transfers between Adekoya’s partner and Daniyan’s partner in 2023 that correlated with communications about shifting fraud proceeds.
Evidence and conviction
Law enforcement initiated its investigation in May 2022, following a collection of impersonation transactions recognized by Broadview Federal Credit Union in Albany.
The investigation uncovered Adekoya’s function because the operation’s mastermind. Adekoya can also be identified by aliases akin to “Ace G.,” “BRODA,” “SANTA,” “Sammy LaBanco,” and “Kiing_maison.”
The authorities introduced proof at trial that included over 60 witnesses and revealed Adekoya’s intensive use of “burner” telephones and over 40,000 encrypted textual content and voice communications with co-conspirators to plan and oversee the fraud.
Adekoya, a profession fraudster in response to prosecutors, has a historical past of more and more refined identity-fraud convictions courting again to 2008, when he was 23 years outdated. Despite this, he had by no means been faraway from the nation, in response to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York.
When the FBI executed a federal search warrant at Adekoya’s condo on December 12, 2023, he wiped the first telephone he used to orchestrate the conspiracy.
However, brokers seized quite a few different “burner” telephones used for the crimes, together with tons of of 1000’s of {dollars}’ price of luxurious merchandise, together with Rolex watches, a $51,000 Tiffany engagement ring, and designer gadgets. They additionally seized roughly $26,000 from a checking account utilized by Adekoya for laundering.
Thirteen extra co-conspirators within the scheme, together with David Daniyan, Kani Bassie, Davon Hunter, Christian Quivers and Jermon Brooks, have already pleaded responsible for his or her involvement.
Adekoya represented himself throughout the trial — a so-called professional se protection — after utilizing three totally different layers and firing all of them. He had stand-by counsel current for him all through the trial. He didn’t testify.
Adekoya’s sentencing is scheduled for October 30, 2025, earlier than the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.
He faces a compulsory minimal of two years’ incarceration and a most of 32 years’ incarceration, together with restitution, forfeiture of legal proceeds and as much as 5 years of supervised launch. He can also be topic to elimination and deportation to his residence nation, Nigeria, following his sentence.
HELOC fraud via identity theft: Part of a bigger pattern
HELOCs have gotten important fraud targets as a result of document ranges of accrued residence fairness wealth, which as of June stood at $11.5 trillion in response to ICE Mortgage Technology. This elevated availability of funds makes HELOCs engaging to criminals.
Bridget Berg, a principal at Cotality, lately advised National Mortgage News — a sister publication of American Banker — that “identity fraud is just a little bit extra of a danger on residence fairness loans” in comparison with first-lien mortgages. This immediately aligns with Adekoya’s strategies, since he relied closely on impersonating HELOC clients.
Personal info, a lot of which is available on-line, particularly with respect to owners, contributes closely to fraudsters’ capability to misrepresent themselves as owners with HELOC loans — simply as Adekoya did.
Ashley Goodsell, a senior fraud investigator at Centris Federal Credit Union, advised Mortgage News Today that customer-facing workers typically function the “finest line of protection” towards HELOC fraud, noting that “uncommon conduct ought to increase warnings.”
She additionally highlighted the significance of information-sharing networks amongst peer establishments and inside red-flag escalation applications.
In Adekoya’s case, Broadview Federal Credit Union recognized a collection of impersonation transactions at its branches and referred the case to the FBI, in response to prosecutors. This finally led to the invention of Adekoya and demonstrates how monetary establishments might help uncover and cease such operations.
