A NIGERIAN monarch, Apetu of Ipetumodu, in Osun State, Joseph Oloyede, has been sentenced to 56 months in prison in the United States after pleading guilty to wire fraud and tax-related offences linked to a scheme that siphoned over $4.2 million from COVID-19 relief funds.
The US District Court in Ohio found Oloyede, 62, guilty of conspiring to defraud federal COVID-19 relief programmes, including the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) initiative, which were designed to support small businesses affected by the pandemic.
The presiding judge Christopher A. Boyko also ordered him to pay $4.4 million in restitution, forfeit his home in Medina, Ohio, and surrender nearly $100,000 in seized fraud proceeds.
Oloyede, also a U.S citizen, will remain under three years of supervised release after completing his prison term, according to a statement by the US Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Ohio, on Tuesday, August 26.
“Oloyede was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release after imprisonment and pay $4,408,543.38 in restitution. He also forfeited his Medina home on Foote Road, which he had acquired with proceeds of the scheme, and an additional $96,006.89 in fraud proceeds investigators had seized.
“Court documents show that from about April 2020 to February 2022, Oloyede and his co-conspirator, Edward Oluwasanmi, 62, of Willoughby, conspired to submit fraudulent applications for loans that were made available through the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
“Among these were the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) programme, which aided small businesses that suffered financial hardship as a result of the pandemic with loans and grants,” the statement added.
It noted that investigators revealed that he spent part of the proceeds on land, a luxury home, and a high-end vehicle.
It also revealed that his co-conspirator, Oluwasanmi, was earlier sentenced in 2024 to 27 months in prison, in addition to paying over $1.2 million in restitution and forfeiting properties acquired with fraud proceeds.
“During the investigation, agents found that Oloyede operated as a tax preparer and owned five businesses and one nonprofit. His co-defendant—and tax client—Oluwasanmi, owned an additional three business entities; all were incorporated in Ohio. Both defendants used their businesses to submit loan applications using false information. They obtained approximately $1.2 million in SBA funds for Oluwasanmi’s entities and $1.7 million for Oloyede’s entities,” the statement read.
According to the statement, Oloyede also submitted fraudulent PPP and EIDL applications in the names of some of his clients and their businesses, taking up to 15-20 per cent kickbacks from their loans, which he failed to report to tax authorities.
It stressed that the convicted monarch in total caused the Small Business Association (SBA) to approve 38 fraudulent applications, amounting to $4,213,378 in disbursed loans and advances.
As part of his sentence, Oloyede was ordered to pay $4.4 million in restitution, forfeit his Medina property, and surrender nearly $100,000 in seized funds.
The US government has been aggressively pursuing pandemic fraud cases, as watchdogs estimated over $836 million in alleged COVID-19 fraud.
Oloyede’s conviction was not an isolated case. Several Nigerians in the US have also been jailed for exploiting pandemic relief funds.
Just recently, three Nigerians, Kamaldeen Karaole, Stephen Olamigoke, and Johnson Omodusonu, were sentenced to over eight years in prison for defrauding the US of $520,910 in a COVID-19 unemployment benefits fraud scheme.
According to reports, court documents revealed that between August and October 2020, the trio, working with accomplices outside the US, stole 168 unemployment insurance debit cards issued by California, Arizona, and Nevada.
They used 98 of these cards to make 529 ATM withdrawals, siphoning the benefits into cash.
Mustapha Usman is an investigative journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: musman@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M