Latest news with #IRSCriminalInvestigation
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Yahoo
DOJ: 16 indicted in San Diego for allegedly distributing meth, fentanyl, heroin across US
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The Department of Justice reports over a dozen people were indicted in federal court in San Diego for allegedly distributing meth, fentanyl and heroin across the United States, resulting in the seizure of over 120 pounds of drugs. The U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of California, reports four indictments were unsealed in federal court on Thursday, charging 16 people in San Diego County with distributing large amounts of methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin, and laundering the drug-trafficking proceeds. DOJ: 22 charged for role in drug trafficking organization linked to Beltran Leyva Cartel More than 115 federal, state, and local law enforcement officials worked together on Wednesday to arrest 10 people and execute three search warrants in the Nestor, Palm City, and Encanto neighborhoods in the City of San Diego. As of Friday, six defendants were still being searched for by law enforcement. According to the DOJ in Southern California, throughout the investigation, law enforcement seized the following: 26.8 kilograms of powdered fentanyl 5.7 kilograms of counterfeit pills containing fentanyl (estimated to be 57,000 pills) 25.7 kilograms of methamphetamine 1.5 kilograms of cocaine 1.1 kilograms of heroin ketamine MDMA more than $40,000 in U.S. currency a Maserati Ghibili 9 firearms, including an AK-47 According to the indictments, the defendants are accused of distributing the drugs throughout the country, including in Ohio and Kansas, on behalf of a San Diego County-based drug trafficking organization. The investigation also uncovered the use of shell companies to gather and launder the proceeds of the drug trafficking enterprise from other states, including Colorado, Minnesota and Nebraska. 'Dangerous' drug trafficking ring shut down in Southern California The charges are the result of a 16-month investigation that included the use of court-authorized wiretaps, undercover agents, and confidential sources, according to the DOJ. 'The indictments unsealed today paint a picture of an organization responsible for trafficking dangerous drugs into our communities – drugs that are killing Americans daily,' said Special Agent in Charge Tyler Hatcher, IRS Criminal Investigation, Los Angeles Field Office. 'These indictments should send a clear signal to drug trafficking organizations that where there's money, there's a trail, and IRS-CI is the best in the world at finding and following those trails. We are proud to partner with fellow law enforcement agencies to flush out DTOs that put our communities at risk.' The DEA, Oceanside Police Department, IRS Criminal Investigation, San Diego Police Department, San Diego County Sheriff's Department, Carlsbad Police Department, U.S. Marshals Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management collaborated on this investigation. This investigation is part of Operation Take Back America, and the result of ongoing efforts by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF). Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Yahoo
York County man accused in ‘complex cryptocurrency scheme' pleads guilty
YORK COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) — A York County man accused of omitting more than $13 million in cryptocurrency income on his tax returns has pleaded guilty. Waylon Wilcox, 45, of Dillsburg, was charged in March with two counts of filing false income tax returns. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, he pleaded guilty Wednesday. He was accused of underreporting his income by about $8.5 million for 2021, reducing his tax due by $2.1 million. In 2022, he underreported by $4.6 million. Most of the underreported income came from buying and celling digital artwork — non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. 'IRS Criminal Investigation is committed to unraveling complex financial schemes involving virtual currencies and non-fungible token (NFT) transactions designed to conceal taxable income,' said Philadelphia Field Office Special Agent in Charge Yury Kruty. 'In today's economic environment, it's more important than ever that the American people feel confident that everyone is playing by the rules and paying the taxes they owe.' The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation. Download the abc27 News+ app on your Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick, and Apple TV devices The maximum penalty is six years in federal prison, a term of supervised release, and a fine. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
IRS crime fighting arm announces modernization program as financial crimes use more tech
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the nature of financial crime changes, with technology and AI increasingly used to perpetrate illegal acts, the IRS' crime fighting arm —IRS Criminal Investigation— is announcing a new program intended to improve how it interacts with financial institutions. Called Feedback in Response to Strategic Threat —or CI-FIRST— the program unveiled Friday is intended to speed up subpoena requests, give banks better data on how to detect criminal activity and build out investigations faster and more efficiently. Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks and financial institutions are required to send over a variety of suspicious activity reports to the federal government after detecting potential money laundering or terrorist financing. The goal for CI-FIRST is to help financial institutions more easily detect and report financial crimes tied to fentanyl trafficking, drug trafficking, human smuggling and other crimes — by streamlining subpoena requests and improving data-sharing with banks. IRS-CI Chief Guy Ficco said in a statement that 'public-private partnerships thrive when everyone mutually benefits." Also on Friday, IRS Criminal Investigation released new statistics highlighting how the agency has investigated financial crimes using Bank Secrecy Act data. The agency found $21.1 billion in fraud tied to tax and financial crimes from 2022 to 2024, seized $8.2 billion in assets tied to criminal activity in the same period, and recouped $1.4 billion in restitution for crime victims, according to the agency. 'Behind all of these metrics are real crimes with real victims,' said Lauren Kohr, IRS-CI's strategic engagement adviser. 'A lot of times people look at BSA data or the Bank Secrecy Act as a regulatory requirement, but it's really one of the sharpest tools law enforcement as a whole has to trace fraud illicit money and dismantle these criminal networks." "And when illicit money moves, it's these BSA reports," she said "that tell us the story.' IRS-CI special agents ran an average of 966,900 searches annually against currency transaction reports. A currency transaction report, or CTR, is a financial document that banks are required to file with Treasury for any cash transaction exceeding $10,000 in a single day. In the past three years, roughly 67% of cases opened by IRS-CI involved one or more currency transaction reports below $40,000, with half of currency transaction reports involving amounts less than $22,230. Despite the majority of reports coming in below $40,000, a group of Republican lawmakers is pursing raising the threshold. Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk and nine other House Republicans have sponsored a bill called the Financial Reporting Threshold Modernization Act, which would raise the currency transaction reporting and Suspicious Activity Reporting thresholds to $30,000 and $10,000, respectively, and index the CTR threshold for inflation every five years. On April 1, the House Financial Services Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions will hold a hearing on April 1 and the issue of CTR thresholds will come up. Last December a Government Accountability Office report recommended Treasury help to 'reduce the number of CTRs filed that are not used by law enforcement, such as by raising the reporting threshold or expanding criteria to allow for further exemptions.' In addition to their financial crimes work, IRS Criminal Investigations has been called upon by the Trump administration to help with immigration enforcement. Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sent a request to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to borrow IRS Criminal Investigation workers to help with the immigration crackdown, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press. It cites the IRS's boost in funding, through the $80 billion infusion of funds the federal tax collection agency received under the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act has already been clawed back.
The Hill
28-03-2025
- Business
- The Hill
IRS crime fighting arm announces modernization program as financial crimes use more tech
WASHINGTON (AP) — As the nature of financial crime changes, with technology and AI increasingly used to perpetrate illegal acts, the IRS' crime fighting arm —IRS Criminal Investigation— is announcing a new program intended to improve how it interacts with financial institutions. Called Feedback in Response to Strategic Threat —or CI-FIRST— the program unveiled Friday is intended to speed up subpoena requests, give banks better data on how to detect criminal activity and build out investigations faster and more efficiently. Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks and financial institutions are required to send over a variety of suspicious activity reports to the federal government after detecting potential money laundering or terrorist financing. The goal for CI-FIRST is to help financial institutions more easily detect and report financial crimes tied to fentanyl trafficking, drug trafficking, human smuggling and other crimes — by streamlining subpoena requests and improving data-sharing with banks. IRS-CI Chief Guy Ficco said in a statement that 'public-private partnerships thrive when everyone mutually benefits.' Also on Friday, IRS Criminal Investigation released new statistics highlighting how the agency has investigated financial crimes using Bank Secrecy Act data. The agency found $21.1 billion in fraud tied to tax and financial crimes from 2022 to 2024, seized $8.2 billion in assets tied to criminal activity in the same period, and recouped $1.4 billion in restitution for crime victims, according to the agency. 'Behind all of these metrics are real crimes with real victims,' said Lauren Kohr, IRS-CI's strategic engagement adviser. 'A lot of times people look at BSA data or the Bank Secrecy Act as a regulatory requirement, but it's really one of the sharpest tools law enforcement as a whole has to trace fraud illicit money and dismantle these criminal networks.' 'And when illicit money moves, it's these BSA reports,' she said 'that tell us the story.' IRS-CI special agents ran an average of 966,900 searches annually against currency transaction reports. A currency transaction report, or CTR, is a financial document that banks are required to file with Treasury for any cash transaction exceeding $10,000 in a single day. In the past three years, roughly 67% of cases opened by IRS-CI involved one or more currency transaction reports below $40,000, with half of currency transaction reports involving amounts less than $22,230. Despite the majority of reports coming in below $40,000, a group of Republican lawmakers is pursing raising the threshold. Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk and nine other House Republicans have sponsored a bill called the Financial Reporting Threshold Modernization Act, which would raise the currency transaction reporting and Suspicious Activity Reporting thresholds to $30,000 and $10,000, respectively, and index the CTR threshold for inflation every five years. On April 1, the House Financial Services Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions will hold a hearing on April 1 and the issue of CTR thresholds will come up. Last December a Government Accountability Office report recommended Treasury help to 'reduce the number of CTRs filed that are not used by law enforcement, such as by raising the reporting threshold or expanding criteria to allow for further exemptions.' In addition to their financial crimes work, IRS Criminal Investigations has been called upon by the Trump administration to help with immigration enforcement. Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sent a request to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to borrow IRS Criminal Investigation workers to help with the immigration crackdown, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press. It cites the IRS's boost in funding, through the $80 billion infusion of funds the federal tax collection agency received under the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act has already been clawed back.
The Independent
28-03-2025
- Business
- The Independent
IRS crime fighting arm announces modernization program as financial crimes use more tech
As the nature of financial crime changes, with technology and AI increasingly used to perpetrate illegal acts, the IRS ' crime fighting arm —IRS Criminal Investigation— is announcing a new program intended to improve how it interacts with financial institutions. Called Feedback in Response to Strategic Threat —or CI-FIRST— the program unveiled Friday is intended to speed up subpoena requests, give banks better data on how to detect criminal activity and build out investigations faster and more efficiently. Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks and financial institutions are required to send over a variety of suspicious activity reports to the federal government after detecting potential money laundering or terrorist financing. The goal for CI-FIRST is to help financial institutions more easily detect and report financial crimes tied to fentanyl trafficking, drug trafficking, human smuggling and other crimes — by streamlining subpoena requests and improving data-sharing with banks. IRS-CI Chief Guy Ficco said in a statement that 'public-private partnerships thrive when everyone mutually benefits." Also on Friday, IRS Criminal Investigation released new statistics highlighting how the agency has investigated financial crimes using Bank Secrecy Act data. The agency found $21.1 billion in fraud tied to tax and financial crimes from 2022 to 2024, seized $8.2 billion in assets tied to criminal activity in the same period, and recouped $1.4 billion in restitution for crime victims, according to the agency. 'Behind all of these metrics are real crimes with real victims,' said Lauren Kohr, IRS-CI's strategic engagement adviser. 'A lot of times people look at BSA data or the Bank Secrecy Act as a regulatory requirement, but it's really one of the sharpest tools law enforcement as a whole has to trace fraud illicit money and dismantle these criminal networks." "And when illicit money moves, it's these BSA reports," she said "that tell us the story.' IRS-CI special agents ran an average of 966,900 searches annually against currency transaction reports. A currency transaction report, or CTR, is a financial document that banks are required to file with Treasury for any cash transaction exceeding $10,000 in a single day. In the past three years, roughly 67% of cases opened by IRS-CI involved one or more currency transaction reports below $40,000, with half of currency transaction reports involving amounts less than $22,230. Despite the majority of reports coming in below $40,000, a group of Republican lawmakers is pursing raising the threshold. Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk and nine other House Republicans have sponsored a bill called the Financial Reporting Threshold Modernization Act, which would raise the currency transaction reporting and Suspicious Activity Reporting thresholds to $30,000 and $10,000, respectively, and index the CTR threshold for inflation every five years. On April 1, the House Financial Services Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions will hold a hearing on April 1 and the issue of CTR thresholds will come up. Last December a Government Accountability Office report recommended Treasury help to 'reduce the number of CTRs filed that are not used by law enforcement, such as by raising the reporting threshold or expanding criteria to allow for further exemptions.' In addition to their financial crimes work, IRS Criminal Investigations has been called upon by the Trump administration to help with immigration enforcement. Last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sent a request to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to borrow IRS Criminal Investigation workers to help with the immigration crackdown, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press. It cites the IRS's boost in funding, through the $80 billion infusion of funds the federal tax collection agency received under the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act has already been clawed back.
