Michael Oluwasegun Kazeem, Identity Theft & Tax Fraud, Oregon 2017

Medford, Ore. – In a brazen scheme that bilked the IRS out of over $11 million, a Nigerian citizen has been sentenced to 7 years in federal prison for his role in a nationwide identity theft and tax fraud conspiracy.

Michael Oluwasegun Kazeem, 24, of Georgia, was sentenced on Wednesday, November 8, 2017 by United States District Court Judge Ann Aiken for his part in committing conspiracy to commit mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, and mail fraud.

The sentence included a two-year mandatory minimum for possessing or using a victim’s identity to commit fraud. Kazeem was also ordered to pay $4,298,860 in restitution. Upon completion of his prison sentence, he will be subject to deportation for committing these aggravated felonies.

The scheme, which began in May 2013, involved the filing of false federal and Oregon state tax returns using stolen identities. The returns included personally identifiable information (PII) including social security numbers and dates of birth. The federal refund was deposited into an account via a prepaid debit card in a suburb of Chicago, while the state refund was directed to a bank account in Texas.

An IRS investigation led to search warrants of residences in Illinois, Maryland, and Georgia, as well as numerous email and instant messenger accounts used by Kazeem and other co-conspirators to further their fraudulent scheme. Agents seized approximately 150 prepaid debit cards and $50,000 in money orders at a Chicago residence. They also found over 50 electronic devices, 40 money orders in amounts exceeding $29,000, $14,000 in cash, and numerous Greendot prepaid debit cards containing over $12,000 in fraudulent tax refunds at residences in Maryland and Georgia.

The IRS criminal investigation determined that the overall scheme resulted in the co-conspirators possessing stolen personal identifying information (PII) of more than 259,000 victims. In carrying out their scheme, the co-conspirators used the stolen PII to acquire over 19,500 electronic filing PINs from the IRS in the taxpayers’ names to be used to bypass IRS authentication procedures. They also obtained and used pre-paid debit cards with the victims’ stolen identities to receive direct electronic tax refund deposits. They eventually filed over 10,000 fraudulent federal tax returns attempting to obtain over $91 million dollars in refunds, with actual losses amounting to over $11 million dollars. Refunds were withdrawn from the debit cards and at least 2,000 wire transfers totaling over $2.1 million were sent to Nigeria.

Kazeem joined the conspiracy in 2013 to help his brother, Emmanuel Kazeem, 34, of Bowie, Maryland and Nigeria, with the fraudulent tax scheme. Agents identified Emmanuel Kazeem as the leader and organizer of the group who received, organized, and distributed stolen identities. Michael Kazeem used the stolen PII from his brother to obtain electronic filing PINs from the IRS in the taxpayers’ names and acquired numerous disposable email accounts used to file fraudulent tax returns and obtain taxpayer transcripts from the IRS.