US court jails Osun monarch for $4.2m COVID-19 relief fraud

A United States District Court in Ohio has sentenced the Apetu of Ipetumodu, Oba Joseph Olugbenga Oloyede, to four years and eight months in prison for orchestrating a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme that siphoned federal COVID-19 relief funds.

Judge Christopher Boyko delivered the 56-month sentence on Tuesday after Oloyede, 62, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, engaging in monetary transactions with criminally derived property, and making a false tax return. He will also serve three years of supervised release upon completing his prison term.

According to court records, Oloyede, a dual Nigerian-American citizen and professional tax preparer, collaborated with 62-year-old Edward Oluwasanmi of Willoughby, Ohio, to submit 38 fraudulent applications for loans made available under the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Programme (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) scheme.

The fraudulent applications, filed between April 2020 and February 2022, yielded more than $4.2 million in pandemic relief funds intended to support small businesses struggling with the economic impact of COVID-19.

Prosecutors revealed that Oloyede and Oluwasanmi used companies they owned along with the names of some of Oloyede’s tax clients—to secure loans using falsified payroll and revenue figures. In exchange for allowing their identities to be used, clients paid Oloyede kickbacks of between 15 and 20 per cent of the loans obtained. None of these payments were declared to U.S. tax authorities.

The monarch personally benefited from the scheme, using fraud proceeds to purchase land, build a luxury residence in Medina, Ohio, and acquire an upscale vehicle. The court ordered him to pay $4,408,543.38 in restitution and forfeit his Medina home on Foote Road along with $96,006.89 in seized cash.

Oluwasanmi, his co-conspirator, was sentenced in July 2024 to 27 months in prison, ordered to pay more than $1.2 million in restitution, and forfeited a commercial property and over $600,000 traced to his bank accounts.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Internal Revenue Service–Criminal Investigations, and the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General under the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee’s Fraud Task Force. Prosecution was led by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Edward D. Brydle and James L. Morford.

Oloyede, who ascended the throne as Apetu of Ipetumodu in Osun State in November 2019, was a well-known figure in Ohio’s Nigerian community. His conviction and sentencing have drawn widespread attention in both Nigeria and the U.S., underscoring the U.S. government’s ongoing crackdown on pandemic-related fraud.