A Philadelphia man pleaded guilty and received a year and a half behind bars after authorities say he tried to steal Permanent Fund Dividend checks by hijacking Alaskans’ accounts and routing payments to bank accounts he controlled.
Adepoju Babatunde Salako, 33, of Philadelphia admitted to orchestrating a 2022 scheme to defraud the Alaska Department of Revenue’s Permanent Fund Dividend program and was sentenced this week to 18 months in federal prison. Prosecutors charged him with wire fraud for using stolen personal information to submit multiple applications and divert dividend payments away from their rightful owners. The case unfolded after state reviewers flagged the applications as suspicious and federal investigators joined the probe.
Court records show Salako obtained the personal identifying information of legitimate Alaska residents and created fresh email accounts under his control for each victim. He then accessed at least seven existing myAlaska accounts, changed contact details to forward official messages to the new emails, and updated banking information so dividends would be routed to accounts he controlled. Those steps, investigators say, were intended to make the payments land in his hands rather than with the rightful recipients.
To mask his location and appear legitimate, Salako used a virtual private network that made six of the seven application submissions look like they came from an Alaska IP address. The seventh application logged from an IP address in Philadelphia, which matched logins from his personal email account in the records. That forensic trail helped investigators link the scheme to Salako despite the VPN attempts to obscure his true location.
The Alaska Department of Revenue identified the submissions as fraudulent and denied the applications before payments were issued. In 2022 the Department paid $3,284.00 to each eligible PFD applicant, so had the fraud gone undetected Salako would have taken $22,988.00 from seven victims. Officials credited careful program safeguards and routine reviews for stopping the theft before payments left state control.
“Mr. Salako spent considerable time planning and perpetrating his scheme to defraud the Alaska PFD,” said U.S. Attorney Michael J. Heyman for the District of Alaska. “Thanks to the great work of the Alaska Department of Revenue and FBI, he didn’t succeed; but even attempting to defraud the PFD will not be tolerated and could result in federal prison.” That statement underscores how federal prosecutors framed the case as a direct attack on a program meant for Alaskan families.
Salako pleaded guilty to seven counts of wire fraud and his new sentence will run concurrently with an unrelated case in the District of Colorado. In that separate matter he was already sentenced to six and a half years in prison and ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution relating to COVID relief fund fraud and international money laundering. The overlapping penalties reflect multiple strands of criminal conduct that federal authorities tied to him.
Special Agent in Charge Matthew Schlegel of the FBI Anchorage Field Office said the program is meant to serve genuine Alaskans and must be defended from abuse. “The Alaska PFD program is intended to benefit current and future generations of eligible Alaskans, not criminals like Salako who seek to exploit the program through fraud and identity theft,” said Schlegel. “Despite efforts to mask his identity, Salako was identified through strong program safeguards and diligent investigative work in partnership with the Alaska Department of Revenue. This sentence reflects our commitment to safeguarding the integrity of government programs and holding fraudsters accountable for their crimes, regardless of where they reside.”
Investigators from the FBI Anchorage Field Office and the State of Alaska Department of Revenue’s Criminal Investigations Unit led the inquiry, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Ainsley McNerney prosecuting the case. Department officials emphasized the importance of digital account protections and vigilance, noting the combination of identity theft, account takeovers, and bank account manipulation that characterized the scheme. “This case should send a clear message that stealing an identity to exploit the Permanent Fund Dividend will not be tolerated,” said Department Investigations Manager Scott Stair of the State of Alaska Department of Revenue, Criminal Investigations Unit. “The Department of Revenue remains committed to protecting Alaskans from financial fraud and holding accountable anyone who seeks to profit through deception.”
The outcome highlights how relatively modest payments can still attract complex, cross-jurisdictional fraud attempts and how modern investigative tools—IP logs, email records, and account histories—can unravel those schemes. Officials say continued cooperation between state revenue staff and federal law enforcement was crucial in stopping the theft and ensuring the program remains focused on legitimate Alaskans. The sentence and concurrent penalties are intended to deter similar schemes and to demonstrate that attempts to misuse government benefit programs will carry federal consequences.
