U.S.-Based Nigerian Sentenced Over Alaska Dividend Fraud Attempt
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A Nigerian man based in the United States, Adepoju Salako, has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison after admitting to carrying out a wire fraud scheme targeting Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend programme.
Salako, 33, who resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to seven counts of wire fraud linked to fraudulent applications submitted in 2022 using stolen identities belonging to Alaska residents.
According to U.S. prosecutors, the scheme involved illegally obtaining the personal information of legitimate residents and using it to access existing online “myAlaska” accounts, which are used for processing Permanent Fund Dividend payments. Authorities said Salako altered account details, including email addresses and banking information, in an attempt to redirect the funds into accounts under his control.
Officials noted that Salako had never lived in Alaska and had not visited the state until his sentencing proceedings. The Alaska Department of Revenue eventually detected irregularities in the submissions and blocked the applications before any payments were released.
At the time of the attempted fraud, eligible recipients under the programme were entitled to receive $3,284 each. Authorities estimated that the total intended loss from the seven applications amounted to $22,988.
The sentence will run concurrently with an earlier federal conviction in Colorado involving COVID-19 relief fraud and international money laundering. In that separate case, Salako received a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence and was ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.
Reacting to the case, U.S. Attorney Michael Heyman for the District of Alaska said the defendant carefully planned the operation but praised investigators and the Alaska Department of Revenue for stopping the fraud before public funds were lost.
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