U.S.-based conspirators sentenced to prison for international tax scheme

 

Date: November 29, 2023

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

Tampa, FL — U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven has sentenced Adetunji Adejumo of Oklahoma City, OK to 33 months in prison and Ibrahim Jinadu of Atlanta, GA to 27 months in prison for their roles in a transnational tax fraud scheme. Both had previously pleaded guilty for their roles in this case. A third conspirator, Olufemi Odedeyi of London, UK is pending extradition from the United Kingdom for his role in the scheme. All three individuals were arrested in September 2021.

According to court documents, international conspirators (including Odedeyi) obtained unauthorized access to computer servers of businesses in the United States; participated in stealing from those servers the personal identifying information of United States residents; and used that information to file false and fraudulent federal tax forms seeking income tax refunds from the IRS. Adejumo and Jinadu, residing in the United States, collected fraud proceeds directed to prepaid debit cards in their possession or to bank accounts they controlled or to which they had access. They then transferred a share of the fraud proceeds to other conspirators. The conspirators filed tax returns claiming millions of dollars in refunds to which they were not entitled.

The investigation was led by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI) Tampa Field Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – Tampa Division. Substantial assistance was provided by the CI Cyber Crimes Unit (Washington, D.C), the Department of Justice's Office of International Affairs, IRS - CI and FBI International Operations at Mission UK, UK authorities, and IRS-CI Dallas and Atlanta Field Offices. These cases are being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rachel Jones.

CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.