Collin County man found guilty of financial fraud had more than $6.7M deposited into alias accounts

PLANO, TX – A 30-year-old Plano man has been found guilty of financial fraud and a money-laundering scheme, U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Cox announced Wednesday.

According to federal officials, Babatope Joseph Aderinoye was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, aggravated identity theft, and mail fraud. He faces up to 30 years in federal prison.

Authorities said Aderinoye has a history of obtaining fake passports using other people’s names to make false business entities and fraudulent bank accounts.

Some of the victims included a non-profit called Project 4031, which is an organization that helps families of the terminally ill people.

According to federal officials, one person’s identity was used to drain his retirement account, and another victim had over $352,000 stolen from his investment account.

As of October of this year, at least 13 individual aliases and 12 business aliases have been tied to Aderinoye. Detectives said they believe more aliases exist.

Once Aderinoye would open the bank accounts, co-conspirators would conduct various scams to target individuals and businesses out of money.

According to Community ISD, Aderinoye also tried to scam its school district by posing as a contracted employee on Jan. 7, 2019. He attempted to commit wire fraud but due to established protocol and the CISD employee following the chain of command, the attempted wire fraud was unsuccessful, the district said in a written statement.

According to federal officials, once the money was deposited into Aderinoye accounts, he would withdraw funds and transfer them to other fraudulent accounts or wire them to a bank account he set up in Nigeria.

He would also use the money to pay co-conspirators and further fund their fraudulent schemes.

Authorities said from June 2018 through September 2019, more than $6.7 million was deposited into alias accounts of Aderinoye. Nearly all of the funds were withdrawn or wired internationally.

“We will hold perpetrators of these fraudulent schemes accountable wherever they are and will use all tools at our disposal to punish offenders and recover their ill-gotten gains,” Cox said.