Abidemi Rufai, Senior Special Assistant on Housing to Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, who is accused of participating in U.S. Washington State’s $650 million unemployment fraud last year is scheduled for a detention hearing Wednesday.
The case will be prosecuted in federal court in Tacoma.
Rufai was arrested Friday evening by federal agents at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport as he prepared to leave the United States, according to federal law enforcement officials.
Rufai appeared in federal court Saturday on charges that he used the identities of more than 100 Washington residents to steal more than $350,000 in unemployment benefits from the Washington State Employment Security Department during the COVID-19 pandemic last year, according to the federal complaint.
Already, Rufai, 42, has been suspended from his government position in Ogun State.
According to Kunle Somorin, Governor Abiodun’s Chief Press Secretary, “we received the very disturbing news of the arrest of one of the governor’s political appointees, Mr Abidemi Rufai in New York over alleged unemployment benefits and fraud in the United States, this morning.
“While the Governor cannot be held responsible for the actions of a full-grown adult, especially outside the jurisdiction of Ogun State and Nigeria, he has since suspended the suspect from office to enable him to answer the charges levelled against him.”
