A French national sentenced to 10 years for stealing $1.8 million by posing as other claimants
Gabriel Adrien Lobe Diop, 35, a French national, was sentenced on June 10, 2024, to 10 years in federal prison after posing as the rightful owners of property held by California's State Controller's Office Unclaimed Property Division. Using post office boxes, mail-forwarding addresses, counterfeit notary stamps and fake driver's licences from several states, Diop submitted fraudulent applications claiming other people's unclaimed property. He attempted to steal at least $9 million between January 2019 and his arrest, and succeeded in stealing $1.8 million, which he spent on luxury goods, property and electronics. He was convicted on nine counts of mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, and ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution.
- Year
- 2024
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Sentenced
- Reported loss
- $1.8 million
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- Unclaimed property scam
- Last reviewed
- 2026-10-07
The facts, as recorded
- Diop posed as multiple different, real victims who had unclaimed property on file with California's State Controller's Office, rather than inventing a fictitious claimant.
- He submitted fraudulent applications using post office boxes, mail-forwarding requests, counterfeit notary stamps, and fake driver's licences obtained from several different states.
- Prosecutors said he attempted to steal at least $9 million between January 2019 and his arrest, and succeeded in stealing $1.8 million of it.
- The stolen money was spent on luxury goods, property and electronics rather than moved through a laundering network.
- He was convicted of nine counts of mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.
- US Attorney Phillip Talbert said: "It took a remarkable amount of energy for the defendant to steal nearly $2 million from the State Controller's Office and attempt to steal millions more."
- He was sentenced on June 10, 2024, to 10 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution.
Why this case matters
This is the clearest documented example of the identity-theft route into this scheme: no victim was ever contacted, no one signed anything, and the real property owners most likely never knew a claim had been filed in their name until long after the money was gone.
No consumer relationship required
Unlike a fee-skimming “finder” scam, Diop needed no client, no signed agreement and no phone call. He researched real names already sitting in California’s unclaimed property database, the same free public list anyone can search, and then became those people on paper: fabricated identification, a mail-forwarding address, and a notarized signature that was never genuinely theirs.
The notary problem
A notary confirms that a person appeared and presented identification, not that the identification is authentic. Counterfeit driver’s licences from multiple states were apparently sufficient to clear that bar repeatedly, across what prosecutors describe as a scheme spanning more than five years.
Attempted versus actual
The gap between the $9 million Diop attempted and the $1.8 million he actually collected shows the state’s own fraud controls catching a majority of the claims before payment, which is also most of why this case exists: California’s Controller’s office identified the pattern and referred it for federal prosecution rather than simply discovering the loss after the fact.
The caveat
Diop was convicted and sentenced; these are a court’s final findings, not allegations. The $9 million figure describes the total value of the applications prosecutors say he attempted, not money he received, and is reported here as an attempted amount rather than an actual loss.
Sources
- French National Gets 10 Years for Defrauding California's Unclaimed Property Division. The Epoch Times. Accessed 2026-10-07. Supports: All facts in this case file: Diop's name, age and nationality, the scheme mechanics including the fake IDs and notary stamps, the $9 million attempted and $1.8 million actual theft figures, what the money was spent on, the nine mail fraud and one aggravated identity theft counts, the 10-year sentence, the restitution order, the June 10, 2024 sentencing date, and the US Attorney's quote.