No one ever wants to admit they are wrong. Passing the buck – the act of shirking responsibility and shifting blame onto others – is an all-too-common habit that hinders personal growth, damages relationships, and obstructs progress. Maybe sounds like a fraudster’s behavior? It wasn’t Adedayo Ilori’s fault when he got involved in the COVID-19 CARES Act bank loan fraud scheme. His friend made him do it.
Ilori’s excuses were a mile long. His personal-training business, called DFine by Dayo Ilori, had suffered due to the coronavirus pandemic. And then he himself contracted the virus. The CARES Act of 2020 was intended to aid U.S. citizens in these situations! But Ilori and his friend went for far more than just aid. They went for it all. From August 2020 to October 2021, Ilori and his friend engaged in a complex scheme to secure over $1 million and attempt to obtain over $10 million in fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans. The duo applied for 14 loans, claiming control of companies that, on paper, employed over 200 people with monthly salaries exceeding $3.2 million. In reality, these companies were completely non-existent. Ilori diverted the ill-gotten funds into cryptocurrency investments, stock purchases, cash withdrawals, and personal expenses, including luxury apartments and a Mercedes car using stolen identities to cover his tracks.
This wasn’t the first time Ilori got waylaid by a friend. This scheme got underway just six months after Ilori had been indicted with some other friends in a separate case also involving fraud, identity theft, and money laundering. Guess what? His friends made him do that one too. Ilori pleaded guilty in that case in April of 2020. And while he was awaiting sentencing, he began making bogus COVID-19 relief claims. Get better friends.
On October 23, 2023, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil sentenced Ilori to 25 years in prison. This sentence is set to run consecutively to the 63-month prison term he received for his prior scheme.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Ilori Found Guilty of PPP Fraud as 5 IDs Shown in LIC Fraud Office and Past Conviction Cited” published by Inner City Press on November 1, 2023
Adedayo Ilori is on trial for a scheme to obtain more than $7 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans — and also for identity theft, including for using a bank card in the name of a victim to purchase items as a Manhattan coffee shop.
On October 26, 2022, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil was presiding over the trial, while videos of the coffee shop purchases were played for the jury. Inner City Press was there.
