POSTAL WORKER PLEADS GUILTY FOR ROLE IN STOLEN IDENTITY TAX FRAUD RING

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Alabama Resident and U.S. Postal Worker Pleads Guilty for Involvement in Stolen Identity Tax Refund Fraud Ring

Stole Identities of Individuals on Her Mail Route for Use in Filing False Tax Returns

An Alabama resident and U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employee pleaded guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama to conspiring to defraud the United States with respect to false claims, aggravated identity theft and embezzling mail, Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney George L. Beck Jr. of the Middle District of Alabama announced.

According to court documents, between June 2012 and December 2013, Elizabeth Grant, 42, of Seale, Alabama, conspired with others to obtain fraudulent tax refunds by filing false federal income tax returns using stolen identities.  For a fee, Grant provided co-conspirators with addresses along her mail delivery route to use in filing false tax returns.  Grant then retrieved the fraudulent tax refund checks from the mail and delivered the checks to her co-conspirators.  The scheme resulted in the filing of more than 700 false returns claiming more than $1.5 million in refunds.

Several co-conspirators, including Tracy Mitchell and Keshia Lanier, have already pleaded guilty and were sentenced for their roles in this scheme.  On August 7, Mitchell was sentenced to 159 months in prison.  On September 25, Lanier was sentenced to 180 months in prison.  

Grant faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the conspiracy count and five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the count of embezzling mail.  Grant also faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft, which is in addition to the sentence she receives for the other counts, as well as a potential $125,000 fine.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Ciraolo and U.S. Attorney Beck Jr. commended special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation and the USPS Office of the Inspector General, who investigated the case and Trial Attorneys Michael C. Boteler, Gregory Bailey and Robert J. Boudreau of the Tax Division and Assistant U. S. Attorney Jonathan Ross of the Middle District of Alabama, who are prosecuting this case.

MAN GETS 12 YEARS FOR RUNNING CREDIT CARD FRAUD RING

The following excerpt is from the Department of Justice website:

Friday, December 9, 2011

"WASHINGTON – A Brooklyn, N.Y., man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., to 12 years in prison for operating a credit card fraud ring that used counterfeit credit cards encoded with stolen account information up and down the East Coast of the United States, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Jonathan Oliveras, 26, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee. In addition to his prison term, Oliveras was ordered to forfeit $770,646 and to serve three years of supervised release. Oliveras pleaded guilty on Aug. 10, 2011, to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

In his plea, Oliveras admitted that he managed a ring of co-conspirators who used stolen credit card account information in New York, New Jersey and the Washington, D.C., area. According to court documents, Oliveras sent payments to individuals he believed to be in Russia for the stolen account information. Oliveras then distributed the stolen account information, which was re-encoded onto plastic cards and used to purchase gift cards. The gift cards were used to buy merchandise that ultimately was returned for cash.

Federal and local law enforcement executing a search warrant in July 2010 at Oliveras’ apartment found, among other things, credit card encoding equipment and more than 2,300 stolen credit card numbers. According to court documents, credit card companies have identified thousands of fraudulent transactions using the account numbers found in Oliveras’ possession, totaling more than $750,000.

The case was prosecuted by Michael Stawasz, a Senior Counsel in the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Dickey of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. The case was investigated jointly by the Washington Field Offices of both the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI, with assistance from the New York and New Jersey Field Offices of both agencies."