Saturday, July 12, 2025 - A Nigerian man was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison for defrauding California and Nevada out of $1.3 million in COVID-19 pandemic unemployment and disability insurance benefits by submitting more than 100 fraudulent applications using stolen identities and using the money to build a nightclub and mall in Nigeria.
Abiola Femi Quadri, 43, of Pasadena, was sentenced by United
States District Judge George H. Wu, on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
The judge also ordered him to pay $1,356,229 in restitution
and a $35,000 fine.
Quadri is a Nigerian citizen who acquired permanent
residency in the United States through what he described – according to court
documents – as a “fake wedding” in messages to a woman who was not his wife,
pleaded guilty on January 2 to one count of conspiracy to commit bank
fraud.
Quadri, who lives in the San Gabriel Valley withdrew the
fraudulent unemployment and disability benefits at ATMs from 2021 until his
arrest in September 2024 at Los Angeles International Airport, where he was
scheduled to fly to Nigeria.
Quadri sent at least $500,000 abroad during the scheme. He
also paid for the construction of a 120-room resort hotel in Nigeria, the Oyins
International, that includes a nightclub, a mall, and additional high-end
amenities. Quadri failed to disclose his ownership of the hotel as required
when completing his financial disclosure to the court.
Investigators found on Quadri’s phone images of 17
counterfeit checks totaling more than $3.3 million, along with messages about
negotiating the checks. Some of the checks were made payable to shell
businesses held in the names of Quadri’s aliases.
California paid Quadri to provide daycare services to
developmentally disabled children through his Altadena-based business, Rock of
Peace. When agents searched Quadri’s residence, they found the children’s
misappropriated food-aid debit cards.
The United States Postal Inspection Service, Homeland
Security Investigations, and the California Employment Development Department
Investigation Division investigated this matter.
Assistant United States Attorney Andrew Brown of the Major
Frauds Section prosecuted this case.
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