Nigerian Notorious Socialite Couple facing 30 years Jail Term for STEALING $900,000 from Americans’ Retirement Bank Account in Maryland
*Suspects: Dasola and Ismaila Abdulraheem hack victims’ retirement or investment accounts to gain access into severance payout, attempted to conceal involvement in laundering proceeds by using shell companies
*BY GEORGE ELIJAH OTUMU/AMERICA Senior Investigative Editor & ANU ADEJUMO/Correspondent, USA
YOU CAN ONLY RUN BUT CAN’T HIDE. The long arm of the law has caught up with a Nigerian notorious, socialite couple in Maryland: Dasola Abdulraheem, 41, and Ismaila Abdulraheem caught for stealing various sums of money in tune of $900,000 from Americans’ retirement and investment accounts. These couple are now in police custody, awaiting their sentencing by February 2024.
A Prince George’s County, Maryland, has ruled this Nigerian man and woman pleaded guilty to their involvement in laundering the proceeds of various fraud schemes targeting victims’ retirement and investment accounts.
According to court documents, from approximately September 2017 to April 2020, Dasola and Ismaila, later secretly divorced, received the proceeds of various financial frauds into accounts that they controlled, and thereafter, conducted financial transactions with the proceeds to disguise the nature and source of the funds.
Unknown co-conspirators targeted the victims of this scheme by gaining access to their financial accounts, typically retirement or investment accounts. In one case, co-conspirators gained access to a victim’s severance payout from his former employer. The conspirators compromised a victim’s account, they posed as the victim and instructed the victim’s financial institution to add a new outside bank account to the victim’s account. The outside account was controlled by either the Abdulraheems or one of the money mules that they used. Once the victim’s financial institution added a conspirator’s account to the victim’s account, the conspirators directed that money from the victim’s account be siphoned from the victim’s account and deposited into the Abdulraheems’ accounts or into a co-conspirator’s account. The proceeds were used in some cases to purchase salvage cars at auction or to wire money to business entities in Nigeria. The overall money laundering conspiracy intended to cause a loss of approximately $866,195 and caused an actual loss of approximately $641,260.
The Abdulraheems attempted to conceal their involvement in laundering proceeds by using shell companies to receive and launder the proceeds of the fraud scheme.
Ismaila Abdulraheem pleaded guilty on October 27, 2023, to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Dasola Abdulraheem pleaded guilty today to one count of receipt of stolen monies in violation.
Ismaila Abdulraheem is scheduled to be sentenced on February 9, 2024. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Dasola Abdulraheem is scheduled to be sentenced on March 22, 2024. She faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Derek W. Gordon, Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington, D.C., made the announcement after Senior U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton accepted the plea.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katherine E. Rumbaugh and Kathleen E. Robeson are prosecuting the case.
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