BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging three Maryland men on federal charges related to a scheme to receive more than $2.7 million in unemployment benefits.
The three men charged were 34-year-old Gladstone Njokem of Hyattsville, 32-year-old Martin Tabe of Bowie and 31-year-old Sylvester Atekwane of Hyattsville.
According to the 13-count indictment, from February 2020 through February 2021, Njokem, Tabe, Atekwane along with others impersonated victims in order to submit fraudulent UI claims. To do this, the defendants obtained the personally identifiable information (PII) of victims. The defendants shared the PII amongst themselves and with others and used the victims’ PII to submit fraudulent applications for UI benefits in Maryland, Michigan, and Tennessee.
The applications contained false information like contact information, addresses, work availability and that they were newly unemployed. They used false physical addresses for the applications so that any money paid to them by the state would go to them and not the victims.
Are they cousins, too?
Someone filed a false unemployment claim in my name and I only found out when the notice was sent to my job. Little did the fool know that I was the person who managed the unemployment for the company. I had a fun time explaining to unemployment that I did not commit the fraud, (Sheesh!) but that someone else was using my name. They never followed up with me to let me know the outcome. I am pretty sure the person won’t get caught much less prosecuted. I found out it happened to a bunch of other people too. Luckily they never got any money because the information they sent didn’t jive.
Sounds like three upstanding Americans! LOL
They got the information from a state employee
Right, and they refer to those names as Marylander’s. They made their way to MD for the purpose of ripping off the system.
Good job fellas…