While you were busy doing Sudoku at your temp job, industrious 19-year-old computer whiz Adeniyi Adeyemi was using his three month temp job to launch a $1.1 million fraud scheme, according to a 149-count indictment. During his stint in the IT department at Bank of New York Mellon in November 2001, Adeyemi allegedly stole personal identifying information from dozens of employees, using the information from more than 30 bank and brokerage accounts in their names. Over the next eight years he used the stolen identities to set up more than 30 fraudulent bank and brokerage accounts, prosecutors say.
"Adeyemi then stole money from the bank accounts of charities and non-profit organizations and funneled it into the dummy accounts, later withdrawing the stolen funds or transferring them to a second layer of dummy accounts," Manhattan DA Robert M. Morgenthau said yesterday. Charities he allegedly defrauded include Goodwill Industries, the Jacksonville Humane Society, American Friends of Birdlife International, and, coolest of all, the Space Generation Advisory Council.
Prosecutors also accuse Adeyemi of stealing from the employees whose information he took, and buying $100,000 in money orders from the Postal Service. Other money reportedly went to buy a Lexus, pay the rent on his Brooklyn apartment, and throw swank parties. The Secret Service began surveillance on Adeyemi after tracing suspicious Internet activity his apartment; investigators later found dozens of bank employees’ credit reports on his computer. He pleaded not-guilty to (deep breath) grand larceny, identity theft, money laundering, scheme to defraud, computer tampering and unlawful possession of personal identification information.
