Feds: Man lived under stolen ID for nearly 20 years

A Cincinnati man is accused of living under a stolen identity for nearly 20 years during which he got married and fathered a child, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Yaw Afari, 46, is charged with aggravated identity theft, passport fraud and making false statements to the federal government.

According to court documents, Afari was born in Ghana and came to the U.S. on a visitor’s visa in 1999.

After being charged with assault in Virginia in 2001, Afari stole the identity of a neighbor and used the victim’s name, birthday and social security number when he was arrested for multiple crimes in Georgia in 2007 and 2009, investigators said.

While in Georgia, Afari also fathered a child, according to court documents.

While in prison for those crimes, he applied for replacement social security cards twice under the victim’s identity, the documents state.

Investigators said Afari was paroled in 2012 and later moved to Cincinnati where he got married using the assumed identity in 2019.

Federal authorities said they began investigating Afari when he applied for a passport in 2022. However, the person he had stolen the identity from had also recently applied for a passport.

Investigators said the victim reported years of problems due to the stolen identity.

The victim said he had been arrested for crimes Afari had committed, had lost a job driving for Uber due to Afari’s criminal record and was nearly forced to pay child support for Afari’s child in Georgia. The victim had to take a DNA test to prove he wasn’t the child’s father, the documents state. If convicted on all charges, Afari faces 17 years in prison. He is scheduled to appear in federal court in Cincinnati on Friday.