The United States Department of Justice has announced that it has filed and served a civil denaturalization complaint in the United States District Court in Baltimore, Maryland, against Emmanuel Oluwatosin Kazeem, a Nigerian national who organized a massive conspiracy to steal identities and file fraudulent tax returns.

The DOJ made the announcement in a press release on Wednesday, March 18, 2026.

According to LIB, Kazeem was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being convicted of 19 counts of mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in 2017.

According to the press release, in 2024, then-President Biden commuted his sentence after only six years. 

“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.”

The newly filed denaturalization complaint alleges that Kazeem’s fraud scheme, which he committed in the years before and after his naturalization, along with his concealment of his crimes, precluded him from obtaining his naturalization lawfully. 

The complaint also alleges that Kazeem had, prior to his fraud scheme, engaged in a sham marriage to obtain permanent resident status and then married a second woman, further disqualifying him from naturalization.

According to court documents and evidence presented at Kazeem’s criminal trial, in May 2013, a victim in Medford, Oregon, notified the IRS that false federal and Oregon state tax returns were filed electronically using her and her husband’s personal identifying information (PII) including social security numbers and dates of birth.