Pennsylvania man will plead guilty in federal court to attempted Permanent Fund dividend theft

(Getty Images)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

A man from Pennsylvania has admitted that he attempted to steal seven Alaskans’ Permanent Fund dividends in 2022.

Adepoju Salako signed a plea deal Sept. 24, according to documents filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska. As part of the plea deal, Salako will plead guilty to seven felony counts of wire fraud.

The Permanent Fund dividend is paid each year to eligible Alaskans from the Alaska Permanent Fund, the state’s trust fund. The 2022 PFD was $3,284; had the scheme succeeded, Salako would have received almost $23,000.

The maximum punishment is 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, plus probation, restitution and additional penalties.

Out-of-state PFD fraud is relatively unusual; most cases of PFD fraud involve Alaskans charged in state court for claiming or attempting to claim a PFD despite being ineligible.

According to federal prosecutors, Salako stole the identity of seven Alaskans and attempted to divert their dividends to a bank account in Salako’s name in Washington state. Salako had never lived or visited Alaska himself, according to court documents.

Prosecutors say Salako used a virtual private network to make it appear as if six of the seven the fraudulently filed dividends were being requested from within the state. In one case, the application showed Salako’s true location, in Philadelphia.

It was not immediately clear how state and federal officials detected Salako’s scheme. 

Aimee Bushnell, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Revenue, said Salako was identified as a suspect by the department’s criminal investigations unit, which works with the FBI, U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General.

Speaking generally and not about Salako’s case in particular, Bushnell said it is common for the department’s criminal investigations unit to “initiate inquiries based on two primary patterns of fraud: applicants who fail to disclose relocation outside of Alaska, and individuals often operating from out-of-state or international locations, who attempt to defraud Alaskans through identity theft or other deceptive practices.”

Bushnell said that in addition to the PFD fraud, “Mr. Salako was further linked to a series of financial crimes occurring in multiple jurisdictions across the United States. The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities continue to pursue all leads to ensure accountability and protect public resources.”

Sentencing, which had not been scheduled as of Wednesday, will take place at a later date.

• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.