Arrests Made in Multi-Million Dollar HELOC and Identity Theft Scheme

Derrick Polk of Los Angeles, Oludola Akinmola and Oladeji Craig, both of Brooklyn, and Oluwajide Ogunbiyi of Springfield, Ill., have been charged with engaging in an international conspiracy to deplete millions of dollars from U.S. victims' home equity lines of credit using personal information obtained through identity theft and unauthorized computer access. According to the FBI, the four men allegedly conspired to deplete available funds from HELOCs belonging to identity theft victims either by engineering fraudulent wire transfers or by gaining unauthorized access to the victims' online bank accounts. The defendants and their co-conspirators have been accused of acquiring the identity information of thousands of victims and used that information to conduct numerous fraudulent schemes, withdrawing more than $2.5 million from HELOC accounts and attempting to withdraw at least $4 million more in unsuccessful transfers. Hakeem Olokodana and Yomi Jagunna, both of Queens, N.Y., Abayomi Lawal of Brooklyn and Daniel Yummi of New York, have also been charged with conspiring to identify HELOCs with large balances and to acquire all of the confidential customer information necessary to transfer money out of victim accounts.