Randallstown Man Sentenced To 5 Years In Prison In Counterfeit Check Cashing And Credit Card Skimming Schemes

Baltimore, Maryland – U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced Jimoh Babatunde Aderomilehin, age 24, of Randallstown, Maryland, today to five years in prison followed by five years of supervised release for bank fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.  Judge Bennett also ordered Aderomilehin to pay restitution of $468,534.42.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Brian Murphy of the United States Secret Service - Baltimore Field Office; and Chief James W. Johnson of the Baltimore County Police Department.

According to his plea, from September 2010 to March 2011, Aderomilehin deposited counterfeit checks into bank accounts of his co-conspirators and withdrew the funds before the checks were returned as fraudulent. Generally, Aderomilehin gave the funds to a co-defendant and received a small portion as his share.  Aderomilehin was recruited into the scheme through other participants and in turn, he recruited others to allow the group to use their bank accounts to deposit checks.  After the fraud was discovered by the bank, they were supposed to claim their accounts had been used without their knowledge so that the bank would bear the loss. 

In addition to this scheme, Aderomilehin became aware that two other co-conspirators were operating a credit card fraud scheme in which workers in local restaurants and hotels were "skimming" credit cards. An associate was re-encoding the credit cards with the skimmed numbers. Initially, Aderomilehin drove others around as they used the counterfeit credit cards. Soon Aderomilehin began using the counterfeit credit cards to purchase items himself. Eventually, the associate sent Aderomilehin cards with his name on them, but with stolen numbers.

 Later, Aderomilehin learned how to create the counterfeit credit cards himself. He recruited restaurant employees to "skim" credit cards. He then used the numbers they stole to create counterfeit credit cards. He and others traveled to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia and other areas to use the counterfeit credit cards.

During the course of both conspiracies involving the counterfeit checks and re-encoded credit cards, Aderomilehin and his co-conspirators obtained or attempted to obtain between $400,000 and $1 million from, or using the identities of, more than 250 victims.

Eight defendants have pleaded guilty to date to their participation in the schemes and have been sentenced to up to 56 months in prison.

The Maryland Identity Theft Working Group has been working since 2006 to foster cooperation among local, state, federal, and institutional fraud investigators and to promote effective prosecution of identity theft schemes by both state and federal prosecutors. This case, as well as other cases brought by members of the Working Group, demonstrates the commitment of law enforcement agencies to work with financial institutions and businesses to address identity fraud, identify those who compromise personal identity information, and protect citizens from identity theft.

Today’s announcement is part of efforts underway by President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF) which was created in November 2009 to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. With more than 20 federal agencies, 94 U.S. attorneys’ offices and state and local partners, it’s the broadest coalition of law enforcement, investigatory and regulatory agencies ever assembled to combat fraud. Since its formation, the task force has made great strides in facilitating increased investigation and prosecution of financial crimes; enhancing coordination and cooperation among federal, state and local authorities; addressing discrimination in the lending and financial markets and conducting outreach to the public, victims, financial institutions and other organizations. Since the inception of FFETF in November 2009, the Justice Department has filed more than 12,841 financial fraud cases against nearly 18,737 defendants including nearly 3,500 mortgage fraud defendants. For more information on the task force, visit www.stopfraud.gov.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the U.S. Secret Service and Baltimore County Police Department for their work in the investigation.  Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Tamera L. Fine, who prosecuted the case.