…Court Confiscates Ohio Mansion
…Monarch Used Stolen Funds For Real Estate, Luxury Lifestyle
…Investigators Tracked 38 Fraudulent SBA Loan Approvals To Monarch
The Apetu of Ipetumodu in Osun State, Oba Joseph Olugbenga Oloyede, has been sentenced to 56 months in prison in the United States after being convicted of a multi-million-dollar COVID-19 relief fraud.
Oloyede, 62, who holds dual citizenship in Nigeria and the U.S., was on Tuesday handed the jail term by District Judge Christopher A. Boyko of the Northern District of Ohio.
According to a statement obtained from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the monarch will also serve three years of supervised release, pay back $4,408,543.38 in restitution, and forfeit his luxury Medina, Ohio mansion alongside nearly $100,000 recovered from the fraudulent scheme.
Court documents revealed that Oloyede and his accomplice, Pastor Edward Oluwasanmi, conspired between April 2020 and February 2022 to exploit U.S. emergency loan programmes designed to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on struggling businesses.
The monarch, who also worked as a tax preparer, set up five business entities and one nonprofit, while Oluwasanmi ran three companies.
Together, they falsified documents and submitted multiple applications under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) scheme.
In total, investigators said the monarch was linked to 38 fraudulent loan approvals worth $4.2 million, with Oloyede personally securing about $1.7 million, while his partner obtained $1.2 million.
Prosecutors also revealed that Oloyede filed loan applications for some of his tax clients, charging them illegal kickbacks ranging from 15 to 20 percent, which he never declared to tax authorities.
Authorities disclosed that the monarch diverted a huge chunk of the stolen funds into real estate, land purchases, a luxury vehicle, and the now-confiscated Medina home.
“The funds meant to help struggling businesses were shamelessly stolen and splurged on a lavish lifestyle,” prosecutors said.
Oluwasanmi, 62, of Willoughby, Ohio, had earlier been sentenced in July to 27 months imprisonment. He was also ordered to refund more than $1.2 million, forfeit a commercial property, and surrender over $600,000 traced to his accounts.
The conviction followed extensive investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), and the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, under the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee Fraud Task Force.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the sentencing underscored America’s determination to prosecute individuals who abused pandemic relief programmes meant for genuine businesses.
“This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Edward D. Brydle and James L. Morford,” the statement concluded.
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