Five arrests have been made in a multi million dollar phone scam that had netted some of the criminals over $2 million in a potentially $36 million plan to steal money from people by pretending that they were IRS agents. Five initial arrests were made on Tuesday in Miami where the criminals ran a phone scam that netted them at least $2 million. This has been part of a nationwide fraud scheme that authorities believe has affected as many as 6,400 people with over $36 million stolen.
The five arrested in Miami called people on the phone and convinced them that they were IRS agents. They told the unsuspecting people that if they didn’t immediately wire them a certain amount of money that they owed, they would be arrested. The IRS has continued to state that they never call people on the phone and demand money which, in fairness to the IRS, they don’t. If the IRS wishes to contact a citizen, it is done through the mail. Also, the IRS never demands that someone make an immediate payment.
The five arrested in Miami are all Cubans who covered their tracks well using number blocking technology and offering people a number of ways to pay them. Using WalMart’s money transfer system and MoneyGram seemed to be the most popular although the scam, at one time, said people could pay them with pre-paid iTunes debit cards. The Miami scam is believed to have bilked over 1,500 people out of at least $2 million.
This has been a growing scam nationwide and was first brought to the attention of the government when a woman complained to a fraud line established by the US Senate’s Special Committee on Aging last October. The elderly woman said her husband was so distraught that he crashed his car on his way to pay $2,000 the scammers said he owed the IRS in a back taxes dispute.
Government tax enforcement authorities traced the man’s money transfer to a WalMart in Minnesota and with the help of surveillance cameras, an investigation was launched. It has become a huge nationwide copy cat crime and investigations continue all over the country.
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