Canadian man sentenced to 2 1/2 years in U.S. Social Security fraud

The flags of Canada and the United States fly outside a hotel in downtown Ottawa, on Feb. 1, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

FAIRBANKS — The United States Attorney’s Office in Alaska says a Canadian man has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison and ordered to repay $420,000 he stole in social security benefits from the U.S. government over a 30-year period.

It says 77-year-old Ellis Kingsep was legally living in the United States and had devised “an elaborate scheme” where he collected benefits payments that were sent by the Social Security Administration intended for his mother.

It says the scheme included “an intricate web of mail forwarding requests for his mother’s mail by using private postal mailbox accounts” in California, Vancouver and Alaska to conceal that he was receiving his mother’s mail and sending correspondence in her name.

The attorney’s office says Kingsep’s mother would now be 103 years old and though there has never been a death certificate filed, she is presumed to be dead as there has been no record of her since 1993.

It says the scam began around 1995 and continued until 2023 when an investigator uncovered the scheme, and Kingsep was arrested in July 2024.

The attorney’s office says Kingsep pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud in December 2024, and the court has also ordered him to pay a $50,000 criminal fine and serve three years on supervised release after his prison sentence concludes.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 14, 2025.

The Canadian Press