Ringleader of $24M tax fraud scheme sentenced to 15 years

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A woman convicted of collecting tax refunds from some 9,000 fake tax returns, including from soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and hospital patients, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday.

Keisha Lanier was also sentenced to three years supervised release following her prison sentence in the $24 million tax-fraud scheme and ordered to turn over $5.8 million in stolen proceeds.

Lanier's sentencing brings to a close convictions in a 10-person identity-theft ring that collected close to $10 million in Internal Revenue Service refunds. The other defendants were sentenced earlier this year, receiving up to 13-year prison sentences.

"Today's sentencing of Keisha Lanier, who conspired with others to use the identities of American service members and hospital patients to enrich themselves by stealing tax refunds, demonstrates the depths of how far criminals will stoop and the extent to which IRS-CI will go to fight identity theft," Chief Richard Weber of IRS-Criminal Investigation said

Investigators said between January 2011 and December 2013, the group obtained identity information from various sources including the U.S. Army, several Alabama state agencies, a Georgia call center and employee records from a Georgia company. The Justice Department said Mitchell worked at the U.S. Army hospital in Fort Benning, Ga.

To file the false tax returns, the group obtained several IRS Electronic Filing Numbers in the names of sham tax businesses. With that information, they applied for blank check stocks to print refund checks. They also obtained anticipated tax refunds using prepaid debit cards and U.S. Treasury checks.