In a case that started from a proactive review of Suspicious Activity Reports, a specialized mortgage fraud task force launched an investigation that led to charges against two individuals. Bank Secrecy Act records captured many of the scheme’s intricate details, including a SAR filed on one of…
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A married couple structured millions of dollars through their retail cigarette business using multiple financial institutions and branches. The defendants’ businesses were dependent upon individuals purchasing the cigarettes for illicit tax-free sales in other states. To avoid scrutiny, the…
A suspect was sentenced to multiple months in prison and ordered to pay more than $1 million in back taxes owed on several million dollars in income that was never reported to the Internal Revenue Service. The income was earned from two related businesses that the suspect operated during a 4-…
A multi-agency money laundering/marijuana trafficking investigation was initiated following the filing of a SAR by a bank in Tennessee. The SAR disclosed that an individual was depositing large amounts of U.S. currency into three bank accounts. The deposits ranged from $5,000 to $25,000 with the…
A joint investigation conducted by the IRS/CID, DEA, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) was initiated by an analysis of SARs and CTRs filed by banks in Ohio. Two SARs led investigators to accounts that had over $1 million of cash deposits. A search warrant for the defendant’s…
A woman who continually conducted large cash transactions at casinos and structured those funds at her local bank pleaded guilty to a Title 12, Chapter 21 violation concerning record keeping requirements. Prosecutors charged her with a misdemeanor violation because they did not find any evidence…
A nationwide conspiracy to purchase cigarettes in the South and illegally sell them in Northern States resulted in the loss of millions of dollars in state tax revenue. In some cases, the unpaid tax on a carton of cigarettes was almost $40 a carton. Some of the conspirators made trips south to…
In a case started from SARs, investigators executing a search warrant found $1.8 million of unreported income stashed in a closet. Although the defendants legally earned the funds, they established a system to convert business revenues to cash with the explicit purpose of evading taxes. SARs…
In a case initiated from a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR), investigators found perpetrators were operating two separate fraud schemes. The first scheme, a check-kiting fraud, was only possible because of the complicity provided by the chief defendant’s wife who worked at the bank where the…
A multi-agency task force, led by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, is investigating violations related to money laundering, tax fraud and material support to terrorism. As a…