AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Seven people, six of whom are from Texas, have been sentenced for the roles they played in a stolen identity tax refund scheme that defrauded the IRS of $30 million.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday the leader of a scheme to defraud the IRS of over $110 million was sentenced to more than 14 years in prison, and co-defendants involved in the scheme were also sentenced. The people involved in the scheme ultimately defrauded $30 million of the $110 million they sought.
The DOJ identified the leader of the scheme as Abraham Yusuff, of Round Rock, Texas.
According to the DOJ, in addition to the terms of imprisonment, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pittman sentenced Yusuff to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution and a forfeiture judgment in the amount of $30,370,365.
Meghan Inyang, of San Antonio, and Christopher Eduardo, of Round Rock, two of Yusuff’s co-defendants, were also sentenced Friday, according to the DOJ.
Inyang was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $762,512 in restitution to the IRS. Eduardo was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $2,823,377 in restitution to the IRS.
The DOJ said in total, seven individuals have been sentenced to prison for their involvement in the scheme.
The DOJ said according to court documents and statements made in court, from 2018 to 2021, Yusuff led a stolen-identity-refund-fraud scheme with Eduardo and Inyang, as well as Christian Mathurin, of Nashville, Tennessee; Dillon Anozie, of San Antonio; Babajide Ogunbanjo, of Austin; and Aydin Mammadov, of Houston.
The below co-defendants have already been sentenced to prison, according to the DOJ:
The DOJ announcement said Yusuff recruited and directed Eduardo, Mathurin, Anozie, Ogunbanjo and Mammadov to provide addresses to him that could be used in the scheme.
Yusuff and others then contacted the IRS posing as authorized agents of multiple taxpayers, and used stolen information relating to the taxpayers and their tax preparers to act as legitimate representatives, according to the DOJ.
They then directed the IRS to change the addresses on file for the taxpayers and to send their tax information, including account transcripts and wage records, to the addresses and emails the defendants controlled.
Yusuff also had the others send him photographs of the mail the IRS sent and then had them destroy the mail, according to the DOJ.
The DOJ said the defendants electronically filed more than 370 tax returns claiming fraudulent refunds and directed the IRS to split the refunds among several prepaid debit cards registered in the names of the victim taxpayers.
According to the DOJ, the IRS sent verification letters to the addresses the defendants controlled before sending the returns, and the defendants and others pretending to be the taxpayers instructed the IRS to release the refunds.
Yusuff, Inyang, Eduardo, Anozie, Ogunbanjo and Mammadov used the prepaid debit cards to further conceal the money by purchasing money orders from local stores in amounts that were designed to avoid having to furnish identification or trigger reporting requirements, according to the DOJ. They also used prepaid debit cards and money orders to purchase designer clothing, home renovation materials and used cars at auction.
The defendants kept or received money orders purchased with the fraudulent refunds as their share of the illegal proceeds, the DOJ announcement said.
IRS-CI and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration investigated the case.
