A Jersey City man was charged Tuesday with using fake passports to open bank accounts and then depositing $1 million in phony IRS refund checks, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey announced.
Mamadou Diallo, 42, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and two counts of passport fraud. He appeared Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Leda Dunn Wettre in Newark federal court and was released on $200,000 bond.
Citing documents filed in this case and statements made in court, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said Diallo and others conspired to fraudulently obtain money from four banks from June 2012 until his arrest Tuesday. Diallo and his co-conspirators created false passports from various West African countries by affixing their own pictures onto passports bearing names other than their own, Carpenito said.
The suspects opened bank accounts using the doctored passports as photo identification and deposited fraudulent checks bearing the routing number for the U.S. Treasury. The funds were then withdrawn from the accounts, with losses exceeding $1 million, Carpenito said.
Diallo faces a potential penalty of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine for conspiracy to commit bank fraud. The passport fraud charges each carry a maximum potential penalty of 15 years in prison.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the U.S. Department of Treasury-Office of Inspector General, and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance were all involved in the investigation.