The Internal Revenue Service today announced the release of its IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) Annual Report for fiscal year 2013, reflecting significant increases in enforcement actions against tax criminals and a robust rise in convictions, including identity theft. CI investigates potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes in a manner…
Category: ID Theft
FL: 18,000 SWFL credit cards for sale on ‘Hackers’ Amazon’
Jim Spiewak reports: Thousands of stolen credit card numbers from Southwest Florida are currently being shopped online to whoever cares to buy them from hackers. It’s the information from the black magnetic strip on the back of your cards. “Instead of thinking, ‘It’s not going to be me,’ the odds are it is going to…
An update regarding your REDcard and the data breach
Ken Hess, a Target customer, received an update letter about the Target breach which he posted in its entirety on ZDNet. There is really nothing particularly new in the letter, other than Target says they (still) have no evidence of any misuse of their branded RED cards and only a “low amount” of misuse of…
Two Defendants Sentenced In Stolen Identity Tax Refund Scheme Relating To A Health Care Provider
Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and José A. Gonzalez, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), announced that Angelo Ponds, 32, of Miami Gardens, and Sean Guillaume, 31, of Miramar, were sentenced February 21 for their participation in a stolen identity tax refund scheme relating to a…
UK: Barclays cybertheft involved cooperation of employee
Steve Gold has an update to a breach noted previously on this blog involving a gang that transferred funds from some Barclays customers’ accounts. At the time, it was suspected that one of the gang members had posed as an engineer to install a KVM device that enabled them to access the bank’s computer and…
Ex-employee of Birmingham Social Security office pleads guilty to stealing from beneficiaries
Kelsey Stein reports a follow-up to an insider breach for tax refund fraud involving the Alabama Social Security Department: A former employee of the Social Security Administration office in Birmingham at a hearing Tuesday pleaded guilty to stealing information and benefits. Tabaris Archie Brown, 35, of Montgomery, entered a guilty plea at a hearing Tuesday morning…