Cases include money laundering, drug trafficking, embezzlement, and tax evasion schemes Date: Jan. 10, 2025 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov WASHINGTON — IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) unveiled its top 10 cases of 2024 on Friday. The defendants in these cases committed millions of dollars in fraudulent activity, duped investors into believing they were going to strike it rich and tried to funnel money to terrorist organizations. They represent the most high-profile and impactful cases of the previous year. Leading up to today’s announcement, IRS-CI unveiled two cases per day on its X and LinkedIn accounts from Jan. 6 through Jan. 10. “Each year, I’m amazed with the variety of cases that make our top 10 list,” said IRS-CI Chief Guy Ficco. “Our agents know how to follow the money, and they use their investigative prowess to target criminals who prey on unsuspecting victims, funnel narcotics into the U.S., and steal from others for personal gain.” The top 10 IRS-CI cases of 2024 include: 10. Former attorney sentenced to 25 years in federal prison on embezzlement and fraud charges in connection with collapse of Washington Federal Bank Robert Kowalski was sentenced in August to 25 years in federal prison for embezzlement and fraud tied to the failure of Washington Federal Bank for Savings in Chicago. He was also ordered to pay $7.2 million in restitution to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and $424,047 to the IRS. Washington Federal was shut down in 2017 after it was deemed insolvent with at least $66 million in nonperforming loans. The bulk of the money for those loans was transferred to Kowalski, at the time a licensed attorney, and two real estate developers as loan disbursements without required documentation. The bank never required Kowalski to repay the money he received. When the bank collapsed, the FDIC tried to collect money and properties from Kowalski tied to the scheme, but instead, Kowalski filed a fraudulent bankruptcy case to try to conceal his assets, which included fake corporate and personal tax returns for several years. He also failed to file any type of tax return for two years. 9. Former law firm partner sentenced to 10 years in prison for laundering $400 million of OneCoin fraud proceeds Mark Scott was sentenced in January 2024 to 10 years in prison for laundering approximately $400 million from the massive international fraud scheme known as “OneCoin.” Scott established a series of fake private equity investment funds in the British Virgin Islands to which he transferred money from the OneCoin investment scheme. He then layered the money through various bank accounts throughout the Cayman Islands and the Republic of Ireland. He was paid more than $50 million for his money laundering services, which he used to purchase luxury watches, vehicles and homes in New England. 8. Former Los Angeles politician José Huizar sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for racketeering conspiracy and tax evasion José Luis Huizar was sentenced in January 2024 to 13 years in federal prison for using his powerful position as a former Los Angeles city councilmember to enrich himself and his associates and evade taxes. Huizar was also ordered to pay $443,905 in restitution to the City of Los Angeles and $38,792 in restitution to the IRS. For years, Huizar leveraged his position as a councilmember and chair of the city’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee to lead a pay-to-play scheme. The bribery scheme sought nearly $2 million in bribes from real estate developers and their proxies, including cash bribes, casino gambling chips, prostitution services, political contributions, flights on private jets and commercial airlines, stays at luxury hotels and casinos, expensive meals, tickets to concerts and sporting events, and other things of value. In exchange for these benefits, Huizar took official acts and gave favorable treatment towards the projects of the paying real estate developers. 7. Suburban Chicago man sentenced to 18 years in prison for trafficking fentanyl and attempting to support ISIS Jason Brown was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison in October for trafficking fentanyl and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, also known as ISIS. On three occasions in 2019, Brown provided $500 in cash to an individual with the understanding that the money would be wired to an ISIS soldier engaged in terrorist activity in Syria. Unbeknownst to Brown, the individual to whom he provided the money was confidentially working with law enforcement, and the purported ISIS fighter was actually an undercover law enforcement officer. Also in 2019, Brown trafficked more than 100 grams of fentanyl, at least one kilogram of methamphetamine and more than 54 kilograms of marijuana from California to the Chicago suburbs and illegally possessed several loaded handguns in furtherance of his drug trafficking activities. 6. Leader of sophisticated stolen identity tax refund scheme sentenced Abraham Yusuff led a scheme to defraud the IRS of over $110 million. In September, he was sentenced to more than 14 years in federal prison. From 2018 to 2021, Yusuff led a stolen-identity-refund-fraud scheme. As part of the scheme, and to avoid fraud detection procedures the IRS established, Yusuff recruited co-conspirators to provide addresses to him to receive mail, including IRS correspondence such as identity verification letters. Yusuff and others obtained stolen Centralized Authorization File (CAF) numbers for their victims, which is a unique nine-digit identification number assigned the first time return preparers file a third-party authorization with IRS. They used the stolen CAF numbers to falsely persuade the IRS they were legitimate representatives. The defendants then directed the IRS to change the addresses on file for the taxpayers and to send their tax information, including account transcripts and wage records, to the addresses and emails the defendants controlled. In total, seven individuals have been sentenced to prison for their involvement in the scheme. 5. Former Jacksonville Jaguars employee sentenced to more than six years for embezzling in excess of $22 million In March, Amit Patel was sentenced to six years and six months in federal prison for wire fraud and engaging in an illegal monetary transaction. He was also ordered to forfeit $22.2 million, the proceeds of the wire fraud charge. Patel used his role as the administrator for the Jacksonville Jaguars’ virtual credit card (VCC) program to make hundreds of purchases and transactions with no legitimate business purpose from September 2019 until February 2023. To hide and continue to operate the scheme, Patel created accounting files that contained numerous false and fraudulent entries and emailed them to the Jaguar's accounting department to avoid detection. He used the proceeds of this scheme to place bets with online gambling websites, purchase a condominium in Florida, pay for personal travel for himself and friends, acquire new vehicles, purchase digital assets and more. Patel did not report any illicit income on his tax returns. 4. Bitcoin Fog operator sentenced for money laundering conspiracy | Internal Revenue Service A dual Russian-Swedish national, Roman Sterlingov, was sentenced in November to 12 years and six months in federal prison for his role operating the longest-running bitcoin money laundering service on the darknet. He was also ordered to pay a monetary judgement of more than $395 million, forfeit assets valued at $1.76 million and forfeit his interest in the Bitcoin Fog wallet, equivalent to approximately 1,345 bitcoin. Bitcoin Fog gained notoriety as a go-to money laundering service for criminals seeking to hide their illicit proceeds from law enforcement. The bulk of cryptocurrency infused into Bitcoin Fog came from darknet marketplaces and was tied to illegal narcotics, computer crimes, identity theft, and child sexual abuse material. Bitcoin Fog processed transactions involving more than 1.2 million bitcoin, valued at approximately $400 million at the time the transactions occurred. 3. Two tax shelter promoters sentenced for billion-dollar SCE tax scheme; two more CPAs plead guilty Certified Public Accountant Jack Fisher and Attorney James Sinnott and their co-conspirators sold over $1.3 billion in fraudulent tax deductions as part of a syndicated conservation easement scheme, leading to a tax loss to the IRS of over $450 million. Fisher was not only a pioneer in the conservation easement industry, but also one of its biggest promoters across the country. Fisher and Sinnott each made millions of dollars promoting and selling their tax shelters to wealthy taxpayers. The two men also used fraudulent deductions generated by their tax shelters on their own personal income tax returns to reduce the taxes they owed on the millions they earned. Fisher and Sinnott were sentenced in January 2024 to 25 and 23 years in prison, respectively. 2. Binance and CEO plead guilty to federal charges in $4 billion resolution In June, Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, was sentenced to four months in prison for failing to maintain an effective money laundering program. Binance Holdings Limited, the entity that operates Binance.com, pleaded guilty in November 2023 and agreed to pay a $4.3 billion financial penalty to resolve a criminal investigation into violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and failure to register as a money transmitting business. Between August 2017 and October 2022, Binance executed more than 1.67 million virtual currency trades on its Binance.com platform between U.S. citizens, users in sanctioned jurisdictions, and blocked users. 1. Former Army civilian employee sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for $100 million fraud scheme Janet Yamanka Mello was sentenced in July to 15 years in federal prison and required to pay more than $140 million in restitution for stealing nearly $109 million from youth programs and failing to pay more than $32 million in taxes. Mello was a civilian financial program manager for the Army’s Installation Management Command where she designed the funding policy used to process grant applications. She created a fake business and used it to apply for millions of dollars from the 4-H Military Partnership Grant program. Once Mello received a grant check, she deposited it into her bank account and then spent it on clothing, jewelry, vehicles and real estate. Her lavish spending that drew the attention of IRS-CI special agents, and the IRS-CI investigation helped stop the final multimillion dollar grant payment to her. Follow CI on X @IRS_CI and on LinkedIn to learn more. CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.
