Tax Fraud Gangs: Organized Groups Using New Ways To Commit Old Crimes

Tax fraud gangs and identity theft rings aren’t exactly new to the criminal world. That doesn’t mean that criminals are finding new and interesting ways to engage in these acts. Just last month, a Florida man was stopped from going through with an identity theft plot that involved more than 1oo identities.

The IRS recently released a report that showed that criminals who are already behind bars have filed fraudulent tax claims worth more than $1 billion last year alone. It appears that one of the reasons identity theft and tax fraud are so hard to stop is because there is just so much of it occurring on a continual basis.

Examiner.com reported that U.S. Attorney Wilfredo Ferrer was recently quoted as saying that tax fraud and identity theft are a “real tsunami of fraud” that are upon us. Ferrer added that quite a bit of the fraud and identity theft is being handled by people who are already well familiar with how to break the law.

Tax fraud gangs are reportedly almost overwhelming law enforcement officials in the state of Florida especially. These identity thieves are not just guys sitting behind a computer, cracking your passwords either. Yahoo! News recently reported about one incident that involved a mail carrier just a few weeks from retirement.

Bruce Parton was a 30 year veteran of the US Postal Service in 2010 when he was gunned down by members of an identity theft ring. The killers shot him so that they could have access to his master mailbox key. This gave the group the ability to carry out a series of crimes involving tax fraud.

The US Treasury department says that these types of crimes could cost the country more than $21 billion over the next five years.

Do you think tax fraud gangs are getting enough attention? Or are they largely still being ignored?