Phenix City, Alabama resident William Anthony Gosha III, also known as Boo Boo, has been convicted of his part in two stolen identity refund fraud schemes that sought $26 million in refunds, announced U.S. Attorney Louis V. Franklin, Sr. for the Middle District of Alabama and Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Tax Division.
Gosha was convicted of one count of conspiracy, 22 counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and 25 counts of aggravated identity theft. The schemes, which took place between November 2010 and December 2013, involved Gosha and his co-conspirators filing over 8,800 tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that sought more than $22 million in fraudulent refunds, of which the IRS paid out approximately $9 million.
Between November 2010 and December 2013, Gosha ran a large-scale identity theft ring with his co-conspirators, Tracy Mitchell, Keshia Lanier, and Tamika Floyd, who were all previously convicted and sentenced to prison. In November 2010, Gosha stole IDs of inmates from the Alabama Department of Corrections and provided the IDs to Lanier, who used the information to seek fraudulent tax refunds. Gosha also stole employee records from a company previously located in Columbus, Georgia.
In 2012, Lanier needed an additional source of stolen IDs and approached Floyd, who worked at two Alabama state agencies in Opelika, Alabama: the Department of Public Health and the Department of Human Resources. In both positions, Floyd had access to the personal identifying information of individuals, including teenagers. Lanier requested that Floyd primarily provide her with identities that belonged to sixteen and seventeen year-olds. Floyd agreed and provided thousands of names to Lanier and others at Lanier’s direction.
After receiving the additional stolen IDs, Gosha recruited Mitchell and her family to help file the fraudulent returns. Mitchell worked at a hospital located at Fort Benning, Georgia, where she had access to the personal identification information of military personnel, including soldiers who were deployed to Afghanistan. She stole soldiers’ IDs and used their information to file fraudulent returns.
Gosha, Lanier, and their co-conspirators applied for several Electronic Filing Identification Numbers (EFIN) with the IRS in the names of sham tax preparation businesses. They then used these EFINs to file the returns and obtain tax refund related bank products from various financial institutions. Gosha and his co-conspirators initially printed out the fraudulently obtained refund checks using the blank check stock. However, the financial institutions halted Gosha’s and his co-conspirators’ ability to print checks, and as a result, they recruited U.S. Postal employees who provided Gosha and others with addresses on their routes to which the fraudulent refund checks could be mailed.
Gosha also directed tax refunds to prepaid debit cards and had them sent to addresses he controlled. Gosha used the prepaid cards to withdraw the refunds. In addition, between January 2010 and December 2013, Gosha participated in a separate stolen identity refund fraud scheme with Pamela Smith and others, in which Gosha sold the IDs that he had stolen from the Alabama Department of Corrections to Smith and others. Smith and others used the IDs to file returns that sought approximately $4.8 million in fraudulent refunds, of which the IRS paid out approximately $1.85 million.
Key Facts
- State: Alabama
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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