A computer technician at the Bank of New York Mellon was indicted on 149 counts of grand larceny, ID theft, money laundering, scheme to defraud, computer tampering and unlawful possession of personal identification information.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office accused 27-year-old Adeniyi Adeyemi of committing ID theft against more than 150 of his coworkers at the bank and using their identities to steal more than $1.1 million from charities and non-profit organizations over a period of more than seven years.
The ID theft took place from November 2001 to April 2009. Adeyemi allegedly opened more than 30 accounts with banks and brokerage firms in the names of his co-workers, and deposited stolen funds, according to the DA’s office. He also hijacked their online banking profiles and wired money stolen from their bank accounts into other fraudulently opened bank accounts.
He did the same with the charities’ and non-profit organizations’ accounts, including those of Goodwill Industries, Iris Ministries, the Kalgidhar Trust, the Sudanese American Community Development Organization, Ravi Zacharia International Ministries, AFK Foundation, the American Community School at Beirut, the Jacksonville Humane Society, American Friends of Birdlife International, the International Association of Women Judges, the Space Generation Advisory Council, and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.
The defendant came under suspicion by the New York/New Jersey Electronic Crimes Task Force of the United State Secret Service when Internet activity was tracked back to his Brooklyn apartment building. Mail related to the ID theft and the fraudulent accounts was delivered to several mailboxes in the building.
The DA said credit reports for dozens of the ID theft victims and other personally identifying information were found in the defendant’s apartment, along with $30,000 cash.
Law enforcement also found a storage locker Adeyemi rented, which contained notebooks with hundreds of names, Social Security numbers, account number and credit cards in the bank employees’ names.
