Two people have been arrested and a third remains at-large after authorities said they defrauded the City of Pembroke Pines out of more than $700,000 in security protection services.
Ololade Shokunbi and Oluwatoyin Laditan, the owners of Bayus Security Protection, were arrested in Miami-Dade on organized scheme to defraud charges, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced in a news release Friday. Olalekan Shokunbi, the company's operation manager, remains at-large, the release said.
According to Moody, the three fraudulently billed the city more than $700,000 for services never provided between October 2012 and June 2017. Their company, now defunct, had a contract to provide security services at several city-owned properties.
The scheme included billing for armed and unarmed security officers when the individuals whose names appeared on the invoices were not licensed to be a security officer, or, if licensed, were not licensed to be armed, Moody said.
The city was billed for the same security officer's services at multiple locations at the same time, billed for services even though the company's logbooks reflected that no one was on post, and even billed for services provided by non-existent individuals, Moody said.
"Taxpayers expect that their cities will spend their hard-earned money on goods and services to help the public. In this case, Pembroke Pines residents believed that Bayus was keeping them safe and secure while on city property. However, these operators made the public less safe by using unlicensed guards, unarmed guards or no guards at all," Moody said in a statement.
Ololade Shokunbi and Oluwatoyin Laditan were both behind bars Friday, records showed. Attorney information wasn't available.
