Tax fraud ring sold stolen children's identities to claim fake tax credits.
The owner of a fraudulent tax preparation business, Ariel Jimenez, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for selling the stolen welfare identities of thousands of children and helping “clients” claim fake tax credits, causing tens of millions of dollars in tax losses.
His "clients" used the stolen identification information (names, dates of birth, and social security numbers) to sneakily add the children as dependents on their tax returns so they could get the money back when they filed their taxes.
Jimenez founded the business behind this tax fraud scheme and identity theft conspiracy in 2007 in the Bronx , New York.
With the help of his associates, he began selling the identities of hundreds of vulnerable minors (stolen by a New York City Human Resources Administration fraud investigator) to thousands of people who benefited from this scheme.
The HRA is a government department charged with combating poverty by providing food and emergency rental assistance to New Yorkers in need.
“While working at HRA, CW-1 obtained children’s names and identifying information from the Welfare Management System and sold those names to [..] defendant,” according to court documents (CW-1 is a cooperating witness).
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“The investigation by IRS-CI revealed that the defendants engaged in large-scale identity theft and tax fraud schemes through which identifying information of minors, including names, dates of birth, and SSNs, was obtained, including through payments to a corrupt New York City official.”
The defendant's business charged a cash fee, in addition to tax preparation fees, for preparing and filing tax returns that falsely claimed that the individual taxpayer had one or more minor dependents, in order to fraudulently take advantage of a tax credit, thereby inflating the refund paid to the taxpayer."
The defendant made more than $1 million over several years by selling more than a thousand stolen identities of children he referred to as “pollitos,” which means “little chickens.”
He also made hundreds of thousands of dollars by preparing false tax returns for clients . Millions of these funds were used to purchase real estate, cars, jewelry or gambling worldwide.
“Jimenez’s use of stolen identities harmed the true guardians of children who were falsely claimed as dependents,” the DOJ in a press release Monday.
"In some cases, the people who were actually caring for these children were delayed in receiving the tax refunds they needed and had to prove their true relationship to their dependent children.".
Jimenez was arrested in November 2018 along with several associates and convicted in February of felony charges of identity theft, wire fraud, and money laundering after a two-week jury trial.
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He was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Monday, ordered to forfeit several properties in the Bronx and $14,580,000, and pay $44,769,906 in restitution.
“ Ariel Jimenez ’s tax and identity theft crimes brutally forced his victims to endure bureaucratic red tape and painful delays for much-needed tax refunds,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in February .
"Today's conviction holds Jimenez responsible for selling the children's identities to his clients for his own profit," Williams added today.
Source: bleepingcomputer.com
