The United States Department of Justice has filed a civil complaint seeking to revoke the citizenship of a Nigerian national identified as Emmanuel Oluwatosin Kazeem, over his involvement in a $91m large-scale identity theft and tax fraud scheme.
According to a press release published on the official website of the department on Thursday, Kazeem orchestrated a massive identity theft and tax fraud scheme that targeted over 259,000 victims with an attempt to divert more than $91 million from the US Internal Revenue Service.
The complaint, filed on Wednesday in the US District Court in Baltimore, Maryland, seeks to revoke Kazeem’s American citizenship, which the government alleges he obtained through fraud and concealment of his crimes.
The Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division noted that the Donald Trump administration frowns at convicted criminals retaining U.S. citizenship.
Shumate said, “The Trump Administration will not permit wrongdoers to retain the U.S. citizenship that they were never entitled to in the first place.
“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 statement disclosed that Kazeem, in 2017, was convicted of 19 counts of mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and sentenced to 15 years in prison, noting that former President Joe Biden commuted his sentence in 2024, after only six years.
- The newly filed denaturalisation complaint alleges that Kazeem’s fraud scheme, which he committed in the years before and after his naturalisation, along with the concealment of his crimes, precluded him from obtaining his naturalisation lawfully.
Shumate, in the complaint, alleged that Kazeem had, before his fraud scheme, engaged in a sham marriage to obtain permanent resident status and then married a second woman, further disqualifying him from naturalisation.
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.
The statement reads, “An IRS investigation led to search warrants of residences in Illinois, Maryland, and Georgia and to numerous email and instant messenger accounts used by Kazeem and other co-conspirators. At a Chicago residence, agents seized approximately 150 prepaid debit cards and $50,000 in money orders.
“In Maryland and Georgia, agents seized more than 50 electronic devices, 40 money orders in amounts exceeding $29,000, $14,000 in cash and numerous prepaid debit cards containing over $12,000 in fraudulent tax refunds. The search warrants helped agents identify Kazeem as the leader and mastermind of the scheme.”
The statement added, “The scheme resulted in the conspirators possessing stolen PII of more than 259,000 victims. Kazeem purchased more than 91,000 identities from a Vietnamese hacker who originated from an Oregon company’s private database. The company provided pre-employment and volunteer background checks for thousands of clients. Kazeem divided the identities into batches and shared them with other co-conspirators. They were, in turn, used to file fraudulent tax returns between 2012 and 2015.
“In carrying out the scheme, Kazeem trained and directed his co-conspirators, including his younger brother, Michael Oluwasegun Kazeem, to use stolen PII to obtain thousands of electronic filing PINs to bypass IRS authentication procedures. They acquired over 19,500 E-File PINS during the course of the conspiracy. Kazeem also used taxpayers’ PII to gain unauthorised access to many taxpayers’ IRS transcripts, which contain sensitive personal financial information. Conspirators also used pre-paid debit cards with the victims’ stolen identities to receive direct electronic tax refund deposits from the IRS.”
In total, the statement disclosed that Kazeem was linked to 10,139 fraudulent federal tax returns attempting to get over $91 million in refunds and successfully received over $11.6 million.
According to Shumate, refunds were withdrawn from the debit cards and at least 2,000 wire transfers totalling over $2.1 million dollars were sent to Nigeria, with over 700 of those wire transfers, totalling more than $690,000, were directly linked to Kazeem.
Shumate explained that Kazeem used the conspiracy windfall to place a nearly $200,000 down payment on a newly constructed house and to purchase a $175,000 townhouse, both in Maryland.
Shumate further disclosed that Kazeem’s average monthly credit card payment during 2012 to 2015 was over $8,300, revealing that he also attempted to use the fraud proceeds to develop a $6 million, 4-star hotel in Lagos, Nigeria.
The statement also disclosed that, “In May 2015, Kazeem transferred the townhouse to his sister in Nigeria for $10 and included her on the deed to his Maryland residence, also for $10. He was arrested one day later.
“On June 20, 2018, Kazeem was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $12 million in restitution. However, on Dec. 12, 2024, then-President Joe Biden commuted Kazeem’s sentence, along with nearly 1,500 others who had been serving under house arrest following their release from prison due to conditions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“Kazeem’s criminal conviction resulted from a joint investigation by IRS-Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General and the FBI. Investigative support was provided by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration; the U.S. Postal Inspection Service; the U.S. Department of State; the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (DHS HSI) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,” the statement concluded.
Kazeem’s criminal case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Byron Chatfield and Gavin Bruce for the District of Oregon. Kazeem’s denaturalisation case was investigated by DHS HSI and will be litigated by the Affirmative Litigation Unit of the Civil Division’s Office of Immigration Litigation.
