An Indianapolis man named Temitope S. Adeboye was sentenced to over four years in federal prison on December 29th for several crimes including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and COVID unemployment fraud. This was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana. The judge also ordered a supervision of three years by the U.S. Probation Office after his release from prison and called for a restitution payment of $804,460.54.

Adeboye, aged 32, had been fraudulently using unemployment debit cards from Nevada that were under the names of identity theft victims. He used these cards to buy valuable items, including a Lexus with money orders purchased with stolen unemployment benefits. The victims had not even applied for unemployment benefits and discovered fraud when they attempted to apply themselves.

His schemes were discovered when he was arrested in August for driving with a suspended license. The police found 96 unemployment debit cards each under different names, several money orders, and a large sum of U.S. currency. He also had around 32 fake driver’s licenses from different states.

The case was investigated by The Federal Bureau of Investigations, Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and IMPD. The transaction history from the debit cards revealed that they were used in more than 5000 transactions at different retailers and financial institutions.