The United States has charged two Nigerian men with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, money laundering, aggravated identity theft, and other offenses related to a plan to use stolen identities to defraud the IRS.

According to a press release from the Department of Justice, indictments in the Northern District of Georgia and the Western District of Texas were unsealed on Wednesday, April 15, 2026.

According to the indictment, Akinade Adedeji Raheem, 43, of Atlanta, Georgia, and Abayomi Quadri Eletu, 42, of the United Kingdom and Nigeria, conspired together and with others to claim fraudulent tax refunds using the stolen identities of accountants and taxpayers. 

Over the course of their scheme, the co-conspirators allegedly filed more than 300 false tax returns claiming over $100 million in refunds from the IRS.

Between 2018 and 2023, Eletu, Raheem and others allegedly obtained identifying information for tax professionals and taxpayers, including their names, addresses, and Social Security numbers, by creating online accounts with the IRS and requesting private taxpayer information. 

As part of the scheme, they changed the addresses of taxpayers to an address controlled by the co-conspirators, so the IRS would correspond with the co-conspirators instead of the taxpayers. 

They also submitted “change of address” requests to the U.S. Postal Service to cause the mail of some taxpayers to be forwarded to a co-conspirator’s address. 

Using the personal identifying information of others, Eletu, Raheem and their co-conspirators electronically filed tax returns claiming fraudulent refunds, then allegedly directed the IRS to split the refunds among several prepaid debit cards. 

Before issuing some of these tax refunds, the IRS sent verification letters to the addresses controlled by the co-conspirators, who, pretending to be the taxpayers, fraudulently verified the taxpayers’ identities and instructed the IRS to release the refunds.    

Eletu allegedly directed Raheem and others to obtain prepaid debit cards to receive the anticipated fraudulent tax refunds.