Baltimore man pleads guilty to stealing identities of the elderly to get their tax refunds
A Baltimore man pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges relating to the theft of senior citizens’ identities to gain tax refunds in their name.
Dolapo Lawal, 33, of Baltimore, had a stolen identity tax refund fraud scheme that encompassed getting fake tax refunds using the identities of elderly victims, and then loading those refunds onto debit cards tied to bank accounts opened in the victims’ names, according to a news release.
Lawal would send those cards to addresses throughout the United States and withdraw those refunds in cash.
Lawal used 24 Green Dot Bank debit cards in elderly victims’ names from March 2022 to April 2022 while the cards were loaded with more than $200,000 in 2021 tax refunds, according to Lawal’s plea agreement.
Eleven of the cards were purchased and activated online around January or February 2022, and the remaining 13 were purchased at different retail stores in Atlanta and Baltimore, according to the plea agreement.
On April 8, 2022, the Baltimore County Police Department searched Lawal’s vehicle and found $18,900 in cash and the 24 debit cards in a bag left under Lawal’s seat, according to Lawal’s plea agreement.
Lawal admitted it was his bag at the scene, according to the plea agreement.
The plea agreement said the vehicle also had multiple plastic bags with opened packaging for these or similar debit cards. Lawal had used these 24 cards for more than 300 cash withdrawals at ATMs to get more than $80,000 in the prior month.
Lawal later said he used these fraudulent debit cards on multiple occasions for cash withdrawals to make payments on his vehicle and to pay off credit card debt.
Lawal also had more than 300 unique Green Dot Bank debit cards in his home when officers searched it on June 21, 2023.
About 200 of the cards were associated with bank accounts opened in the names of additional victims which were listed as the direct deposit accounts for 2021 and 2022 tax refunds, according to the plea agreement.
The tax returns were filed after the April 8, 2022 traffic stop, but the IRS had not issued the refund claims before the search of Lawal’s home, according to the plea agreement.
In total, there were more than $3 million in refund claims, according to the plea agreement.
Lawal faces a maximum of 10 years in prison followed by up to three years of supervised release for access device fraud. He faces a minimum mandatory sentence of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft which will run consecutively to the access device fraud sentence. This sentence would be followed by a year of supervised release.
Lawal’s sentencing will be on Aug. 6.
Lawal’s attorney, David Fischer, declined to comment on the case.
