Lee B Posted July 9, 2015 Report Share Posted July 9, 2015 IRS Phone Scam Ringleader Gets 14-Year Sentence A scammer who organized a scheme in which taxpayers were threatened with calls purporting to come from the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI demanding payment has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.Sahil Patel was sentenced to 175 months in prison and $1 million in forfeiture for his role in organizing the U.S. side of a massive fraud and extortion ring run through various “call centers” located in India, through which Patel and his co-conspirators impersonated American law enforcement officials and threatened victims with arrest and financial penalties unless those victims made payments to avoid purported charges.In addition to the prison sentence, Patel, 36, of Tatamy, Pa., was sentenced to three years of supervised release.SourceMedia's Partner Insights program enables marketers to deliver relevant content and insights directly to the Accounting Today audience via SourceMedia's digital media platforms. Partner Insights content is produced by the marketer. To find out more, contact Jack Lynch at [email protected]Patel pleaded guilty in January 2015 before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who imposed the sentence Wednesday. “The nature of this crime robbed people of their identities and their money in a way that causes people to feel they have been almost destroyed,” said Hellerstein.According to prosecutors, from Dec. 2011 through the day of his arrest on Dec. 18, 2013, Patel participated as a leader in a sophisticated scheme to intimidate and defraud hundreds of innocent victims of hundreds of dollars apiece. Throughout the course of the fraud, telephone call centers located in India hired English-speaking employees to place telephone calls to individuals living in the U.S.Armed with long lists of potential victims, referred to by Patel and his co-conspirators as “lead sheets,” those India-based callers systematically placed thousands of calls to individuals in the U.S. in the hopes of intimidating the call recipients into providing a payment to the co-conspirators. To extort these victims, the India-based callers impersonated law enforcement officials of the FBI and IRS and threatened their victims with financial penalties and arrest in connection with fabricated financial crimes.“Sahil Patel’s elaborate scheme involved impersonating law enforcement officers and using intimidation and fear to bilk over a million dollars from hundreds of unsuspecting victims,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a statement.In order to receive funds in a manner that would mask the identity of Patel and his co-conspirators, the ring undertook several measures to anonymize itself, including by using anonymized voice-over-internet technology, which was subscribed under fraudulent names in order to give the appearance of being related to U.S. law enforcement agencies.Patel and his co-conspirators also used several layers of wire transactions in order to conceal the destination and nature of the extorted payments, which totaled at least $1.2 million.The scam has been continuing and on the rise this year despite Patel’s arrest. Taxpayers who have been targeted by the scam can report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at www.tigta.gov and clicking on the IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting tab in the upper right corner, or call the TIGTA hotline at 1-800-366-4484 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelmars Posted July 9, 2015 Report Share Posted July 9, 2015 he isn't the only one because it is still going on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted July 9, 2015 Report Share Posted July 9, 2015 Considering the pain and fear - and the kind of threat used - I'd go for execution. But I'm mean and cannot abide those who terrorize others for fun and profit. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cathy Posted July 9, 2015 Report Share Posted July 9, 2015 he isn't the only one because it is still going on.You're right! I had a message on my recorder just yesterday that unless I called the IRS agent back I would be arrested.....I laughed but it's not funny especially for the elderly as I have had to personally take one of my elderly client's checkbook and keep it for a couple of weeks to prevent him from sending in a $19,000 check that he didn't owe....and it was a legitimate letter from IRS, but they had just made an error. Because of the circumstances, I was able to get a no liability letter printed out pretty quickly to prove to him that he didn't owe the bill. That incident happened before the "let's aggravate the public so they will tell their Congressmen to restore our funds game" they are presently playing! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRS Posted July 9, 2015 Report Share Posted July 9, 2015 >>especially for the elderly<<Sadly, it is not only the elderly that seem to fall for it. I have had numerous calls from friends of varying ages call and ask me what to do. BUT, no clients! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcb39 Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 My brother just got a call last weekend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gail in Virginia Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 Actually, I got a call Tuesday on my cell phone. While I was attending the IRS Tax Forum at National Harbor. I laughed. But it really isn't funny - people fall for this every day, which is why they keep doing it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDEA Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 At the forum also this week.Picked up of few points I had forgotten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 I had a couple of panicked emails and calls from a client while I was on vacation -- fortunately she did an internet search *before* sending money. Then I got it's OK I figured it out and won't send them dough" email from her. I am SO glad she checked first. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcjenkins Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 14 years really does not seem enough, given the scope of his operation, does it? I think he should be deported at the end of his sentence. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gail in Virginia Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 (edited) Could he be deported to the moon? Without a vacuum suit? Or maybe forced to work at prison wages until everyone gets paid back for at least the money he stole from them (I don't think he can restore their peace of mind.) Anymore, sending him to another country doesn't mean he can't do this again, it just means that it will be harder to arrest him if he does. Edited July 10, 2015 by Gail in Virginia 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcjenkins Posted July 10, 2015 Report Share Posted July 10, 2015 A good point, Gail. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry D EA Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 I think they should give him the number of yeas it takes each person he defrauded to recover their funds plus pain and suffering and any other thing they can tack onto his hind end. The article says he was fined one million but defrauded people up to 1.2 mil and higher. Why did they stop there? Got off too easy in my opinion. I do like the possibility of deportation but he didn't run the calls from here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcjenkins Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Well, personally, a firing squad would suit me just fine for him, given not only the financial pain but the fear and anguish he caused to so many. Or if that's too messy for you, how about we just put him to sleep, permanently? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack from Ohio Posted July 13, 2015 Report Share Posted July 13, 2015 Well, personally, a firing squad would suit me just fine for him, given not only the financial pain but the fear and anguish he caused to so many. Or if that's too messy for you, how about we just put him to sleep, permanently?Blindfold the firing squad so that several of the shots miss his heart. Let him die slowly and agonizingly, just the same way his victims have to repair the damage. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaraEA Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 I had a client call just last week who got the call and was on his way to the Western Union office to wire the money when he had second thoughts and called me first. Guess Patel's arrest hasn't stopped the whole organized criminal gang. It's going to be like wacking moles--get one and another pops up. (Ronnie Deutsch all over again. They shut her and others down, but I still hear a half dozen commercials a day from "pennies on the dollar" places.) I saw a newscast in Maryland yesterday about the same exact scam targeting Dominion Electric Company customers--pay right now or we'll turn off the juice, send the cops, whatever. What's scary about this one is that people won't think to call their tax person to question it. At least we could warn them not to send money. In our practice we have had over 100 clients who contacted us about the IRS call.What scares me is the statement, "Patel and his co-conspirators also used several layers of wire transactions in order to conceal the destination and nature of the extorted payments...." These guys are too good at what they do. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelmars Posted July 16, 2015 Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 Well, personally, a firing squad would suit me just fine for him, given not only the financial pain but the fear and anguish he caused to so many. Or if that's too messy for you, how about we just put him to sleep, permanently?target practice for Catherine? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack from Ohio Posted July 16, 2015 Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 target practice for Catherine?With her blindfolded.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 With her blindfolded....The squeals and screams would help me plan the next shot... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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