In addition to allegedly bilking Washington state's Employment Security Department of nearly $350,000 in jobless benefits, suspended Nigerian government official Abidemi Rufai also sought to defraud the Internal Revenue Service of nearly $1.6 million, federal prosecutors said Friday.
Law enforcement has sought to keep Rufai detained pending trial in the Eastern District of New York, arguing that he is a flight risk. The new information about his alleged attempts to cheat the tax system adds weight to calls for his continued detention, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Friday in a new filing in Seattle's federal court.
Rufai allegedly filed 652 fraudulent tax returns on behalf of taxpayers whose identities he had stolen, the IRS said. The agency's investigation showed the scheme netted Rufai nearly $900,000, since many of the returns were rejected by the IRS.
Rufai had been under investigation by the IRS for years, the U.S. Attorney said in its filing Friday.
Attorney Lance Hester, who is representing Rufai locally, said he was not yet familiar enough with the allegations against his client to comment.
