Saturday, November 17, 2012

17 arrested in Jacksonville ID theft, tax fraud at banks | jacksonville ...

A seven-month joint investigation of the State Attorney?s Office, Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Secret Service has led to 17 people being arrested in an identity theft and bank fraud racket.

State Attorney Angela Corey announced the arrests Thursday with federal officials. Corey said the case originated with an employee of Citibank stealing the identities of customers.

False tax returns were then filed using these false identities.

?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.?

Slideshow: See all of the suspects and their charges

Victims are from across the country, including New York, New Hampshire and Virginia, Corey said.

IRS Special Agent in Charge Jim Robnett 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.

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 Tuesday and charged with bank fraud. He is accused of recruiting at least three other people to go to VyStar with fraudulent checks and recruiting 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, Corey said.

VyStar CEO Terry West said it was disappointing that 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?s Office spokeswoman Jackelyn Barnard said the identity theft occurred at Citibank, not Vystar.

In a statement emailed to the Times-Union, Citibank said it worked with law enforcement after discovering concerns with collections department employee Nanniesha Taliferro, 25, whose boyfriend also was later arrested.

?We also notified those customers who were impacted and closed their accounts to prevent further unauthorized access,? the statement said.

Customers victimized are not liable for any unauthorized charges made to their accounts.

After getting the case from VyStar, investigators identified Latissha Johnson, 35, and Terrance Byrd, 28, as the ones suspected of preparing most of the fake tax returns. After arresting them, police were able to identify others involved.

Assistant State Attorney Joe Licandro said law enforcement has worked diligently to inform all the people whose identities were stolen.

The majority of victims were elderly, but they stole any identification they could get, Licandro said.

larry.hannan@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4470

Source: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2012-11-15/story/17-arrested-jacksonville-id-theft-tax-fraud-banks

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