Feds charge 25 suspects with ID theft, tax fraud in South Florida take-down
Source: Miami Herald
At the height of tax season, federal authorities announced Thursday they have charged 25 South Florida suspects — including a Miami-Dade public school employee —with stealing personal information from unwitting victims such as students to file fraudulent income-tax returns in their names.
All but one of the suspects were arrested Thursday or in recent weeks in a variety of cases involving nearly 14,000 stolen identities and $36 million in false refund claims. As a result, the Internal Revenue Service paid out $9.5 million to the accused criminals, authorities said.
South Florida’s take-down aimed to combat the ever-spreading crimes of ID theft and tax-refund fraud that are costing the U.S. government billions of dollars a year.
U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer, who has launched the only task force in the nation to crack down on the dual crimes, held a news conference to spotlight the latest arrests before the April 15 tax-filing deadline and South Florida's dubious reputation as the capital of these twin crimes. He also warned the public to guard their Social Security numbers and other personal information against cyber thieves to prevent themselves from becoming tax-fraud victims.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/04/03/4036708/feds-arrest-25-south-florida-suspects.html#storylink=cpy
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