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The Department of Justice seeks to denaturalize Nigerian native US citizen Emmanuel Oluwatosin Kazeem over a massive tax fraud scheme. The DOJ filed and served the denaturalization complaint in the US District Court in Baltimore, MD.
Kazeem was convicted in 2017 of 19 counts of mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. For this, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 2024, President Joe Biden commuted his sentence and Kazeem only served 6 years. He was linked to 10,139 fake federal tax returns attempting to steal $91 million from taxpayers. He successfully stole over $11.6 million and sent $2.1 million to Nigeria.
His fraud "scheme resulted in the conspirators possessing stolen PII of more than 259,000 victims. Kazeem purchased more than 91,000 identities from a Vietnamese hacker that originated from an Oregon company’s private database. The company provided pre-employment and volunteer background checks for thousands of clients. Kazeem divided the identities into batches and shared them with other co-conspirators. They were in turn used to file fraudulent tax returns between 2012 and 2015," states the DOJ. He also looped others into his scheme, including his younger brother.
The fraud for which he was convicted was committed in the years before and after he was naturalized. The denaturalization complaint alleges that since he was in the process of committing federal crimes, his natualization was obtained unlawfully. The DOJ also says that Kazeem had engaged in a sham marriage in order to get a permanent residency in the US and then proceeded to marry a second woman.
"The Trump Administration will not permit wrongdoers to retain the U.S. citizenship that they were never entitled to in the first place," said Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. "U.S. Citizenship is a privilege, and we will continue to ask courts to revoke a status that was obtained through fraud and deceit."
Kazeem was convicted in 2017 of 19 counts of mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. For this, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 2024, President Joe Biden commuted his sentence and Kazeem only served 6 years. He was linked to 10,139 fake federal tax returns attempting to steal $91 million from taxpayers. He successfully stole over $11.6 million and sent $2.1 million to Nigeria.
His fraud "scheme resulted in the conspirators possessing stolen PII of more than 259,000 victims. Kazeem purchased more than 91,000 identities from a Vietnamese hacker that originated from an Oregon company’s private database. The company provided pre-employment and volunteer background checks for thousands of clients. Kazeem divided the identities into batches and shared them with other co-conspirators. They were in turn used to file fraudulent tax returns between 2012 and 2015," states the DOJ. He also looped others into his scheme, including his younger brother.
The fraud for which he was convicted was committed in the years before and after he was naturalized. The denaturalization complaint alleges that since he was in the process of committing federal crimes, his natualization was obtained unlawfully. The DOJ also says that Kazeem had engaged in a sham marriage in order to get a permanent residency in the US and then proceeded to marry a second woman.
"The Trump Administration will not permit wrongdoers to retain the U.S. citizenship that they were never entitled to in the first place," said Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. "U.S. Citizenship is a privilege, and we will continue to ask courts to revoke a status that was obtained through fraud and deceit."
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