A South Florida city was conned out of $700,000 by phantom security guards, state says
Two South Florida residents have been accused of being involved in a security protection scam that conned Pembroke Pines out of more than $700,000, said Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.
Ololade Shokunbi, 55, and Oluwatoyin Laditan, 60, were arrested in Miami-Dade County last week and are charged with “organized scheme to defraud,” according to Moody’s office.
Shokunbi was arrested at her Miami Gardens apartment last Thursday, a few days after a criminal warrant was issued for her in Broward County. She lives less than five minutes away from the Miami Gardens Police Department.
A third suspect, Olalekan Shokunbi, 63, is still on the run.
Pembroke Pines contracted with Miami Gardens’ Bayus Security Services and Bayus Security Protection — both now out of business — to provide security at several city-owned properties, Moody said.
Instead, Ololade and Olalekan Shokunbi — the owners of Bayus — and their operation manager, Laditan, used the contract between October 2012 and June 2017 to charge the city more than $700,000 for security services they never provided, according to investigators.
Bayus was hired in 2008 to provide private security at several city-owned properties, Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis wrote in an emailed statement to the Miami Herald Wednesday afternoon.
“The City has been aware of the review by the Broward County Office of the Inspector General of the City’s contracts with and payments to Bayus, and has fully cooperated with that review,” Ortis said. “The City will continue to cooperate with the OIG, law enforcement agencies and state prosecutors as this matter proceeds.”
During the investigation, law enforcement learned that the Shokunbis and Laditan billed the city for armed and unarmed security guards who were either not licensed to work as guards or were not licensed to be armed, Moody said.
Investigators also found discrepancies when they compared the city’s bill to Bayus’ logbooks.
The city paid for vacant posts, according to investigators. Some security guards were listed as working at multiple locations at the same time. Others didn’t even exist, according to investigators.
This isn’t the first time Bayus Security Services has run into legal trouble for discrepancies.
A security guard sued the company in January 2009 for allegedly refusing to pay him for the overtime hours he worked during his employment from September 2005 until November 2008. The case was settled in March 2009.
“Pembroke Pines residents believed that Bayus was keeping them safe and secure while on city property,” the attorney general said in a statement. “However, these operators made the public less safe by using unlicensed guards, unarmed guards or no guards at all. Protecting citizens is a major tenet of my administration, and we will fight to ensure these criminals face justice.”
Assistant Statewide Prosecutor Priscilla Prado will prosecute the case.
This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 12:26 PM.
