A joint investigation of the State Attorney?s Office, Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Secret Service has led to 17 people being arrested for identity theft and tax fraud.
State Attorney Angela Corey announced the arrests Thursday morning with federal officials. Corey said the case, dubbed ?Operation Zig-Zag,? began with an employee of CitiBank, Jacksonville resident Nanniesha Taliferro, 25, stealing the identities of customers.
False tax returns were then filed using these identities. Corey said at least 185 people had their identities stolen with about $500,000 in false claims being made and the IRS paying out about $340,000.
?I can tell you this case is one of the largest ID thefts we have investigated,? Corey said. ?We found victims that are children, we found victims that are deceased.?
Victims are from all over the country, including New York, New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida, Corey said.
The investigation began when VyStar Credit Union noticed multiple tax returns being cashed into single accounts. VyStar also thought it was suspicious that people who didn?t live in the Jacksonville area were depositing their refund checks in these accounts.
Investigators identified Jacksonville resident Larry Bernard Worth, 31, as one of the ringleaders of the plan. Worth was arrested earlier this week and charged with bank fraud. Worth recruited at least three other people to go to VyStar with fraudulent checks, and also recruited five VyStar tellers to assist with cashing the checks.
Each teller was paid about $1,000, and the refund checks averaged about $7,500 each.
VyStar CEO Terry West said internal controls at the credit union noticed the fraud, and an internal investigation was conducted that identified the employees that were involved. The case was then turned over to the police.
West said it was disappointing that VyStar employees were involved in criminal activity, but the credit union is also proud that its internal controls caught the fraud.
?It doesn?t feel good to have our employees do this,? West said. ?But I want to make clear that none of our members had their identities stolen.?
State Attorney spokeswoman Jackie Barnard said that was accurate, the identity theft occurred at Citibank, not Vystar.
After getting the case from VyStar investigators identified Latissha Johnson of Jacksonville and Terrance Byrd of Miami as the two people responsible for preparing most of the fake tax returns. After arresting Johnson police were able to identify Lauren Buggs and Yvonne Johnson
For more information check back with Jacksonville.com or read Friday?s edition of the Florida Times-Union.
Larry Hannan: (904) 359-4470
Yahoo Fantasy Football Nick Foles Auguste Rodin Breaking Amish Indianapolis explosion jay cutler applebees
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.