US Moves to Strip Nigerian of Citizenship Over $91 Million Tax Fraud Scheme

The United States Department of Justice has filed a civil complaint seeking to revoke the citizenship of a Nigerian-born man who masterminded one of the largest identity theft and tax fraud schemes in recent history. Emmanuel Oluwatosin Kazeem, who was convicted in 2017 on 19 counts including mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy, now faces denaturalization after prosecutors say he obtained his citizenship through lies and deception .

The complaint, filed at a U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Maryland, alleges that Kazeem’s fraudulent activities spanned several years both before and after he became a U.S. citizen, making him ineligible for naturalisation from the start . Authorities also claim he entered into a sham marriage to secure permanent residency before contracting another marriage, further violating immigration laws .

Court documents reveal the staggering scale of Kazeem’s operation. He purchased over 91,000 stolen identities from a foreign hacker who had breached the database of an Oregon-based company that conducted pre-employment and volunteer background checks . In total, conspirators possessed stolen personal identifying information for more than 259,000 victims, which was used to file fraudulent tax returns between 2012 and 2015 .

Investigators linked Kazeem to 10,139 fraudulent federal tax returns seeking more than $91 million in refunds, of which over $11.6 million was successfully obtained . At least $2.1 million was transferred to Nigeria through thousands of wire transactions, while the rest was funneled through prepaid debit cards .

Kazeem used the proceeds to fund an extravagant lifestyle, including a nearly $200,000 down payment on a newly constructed Maryland home and the purchase of a $175,000 townhouse . He also allegedly attempted to invest in a $6 million four-star hotel project in Lagos, Nigeria . When he suspected authorities were closing in, he quickly transferred ownership of some properties to a relative in Nigeria for nominal sums, though the move came just one day before his arrest.

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Kazeem was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison in June 2018 following his conviction . However, in December 2024, former President Joe Biden commuted his sentence after he had served about six years, as part of nearly 1,500 commutations granted to individuals who had been serving under house arrest following pandemic-era prison releases .

Now the Trump administration has reversed course, moving aggressively to strip him of citizenship. Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division made the administration’s position clear.

The Trump Administration will not permit wrongdoers to retain the U.S. citizenship that they were never entitled to in the first place, Shumate said in a statement. U.S. citizenship is a privilege, and we will continue to ask courts to revoke a status that was obtained through fraud and deceit.

The case first came to light in 2013 after a couple in Oregon complained that false federal and state tax returns had been filed electronically using their personal identifying information . That triggered an IRS investigation, which revealed a pattern of fraud that identified Kazeem as the mastermind who had begun training others, including his younger brother Oluwasegun Kazeem, on how to use stolen identities to bypass IRS authentication procedures .

The current denaturalisation case is being handled by the Department of Justice’s immigration litigation unit, following investigations by Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the IRS Criminal Investigation unit . If successful, the case would strip Kazeem of his U.S. citizenship on grounds that it was obtained through fraud and misrepresentation, effectively undoing the naturalization he secured through deception .

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