BALTIMORE, MD—A Maryland man has pleaded guilty to his role in a scheme to fraudulently obtain more than $1 million in unemployment benefits, authorities say.
Mervyn Fombe Abiko, 35, of Prince George’s County, was involved in a conspiracy to impersonate victims and submit fraudulent unemployment insurance claims from February 2020 through February 2021, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Abiko and his co-conspirators collected the personally identifiable information of victims without their knowledge or consent and used it to submit fraudulent applications for unemployment benefits in several states, including Maryland, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Authorities traced at least $1,313,325 in unemployment benefits to Abiko’s conspiracy, which involved the use of the names and PII of more than 183 victims. Law enforcement linked the fraudulent UI claims by matching common IP, mailing, and/or email addresses.
U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes announced the plea, along with representatives from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Department of Labor – Office of Inspector General, Homeland Security Investigations Baltimore, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury – Office of Inspector General.
Two of Abiko’s co-conspirators, Martin Tabe, 35, of Bowie, and Sylvester Atekwane, 34, of Hyattsville, have already pleaded guilty to their roles in the scheme. Another co-conspirator, Gladstone Njokem, 37, of Hyattsville, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 54 months in prison in October 2023.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean R. Delaney is handling the federal prosecution.
This article was written with the assistance of AI and reviewed by a human editor.
Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels
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