Date: June 28, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Ocala, FL — United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announces the arrest of Clarence Christofer Ward, a/k/a Khaled Yaqud Mansur-El, on an indictment charging him with one count of wire fraud, ten counts of money laundering, and one count of making a false claim to the Internal Revenue Service. If convicted, Ward faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison for the wire fraud offense, up to 10 years’ imprisonment for each count of money laundering, and 3 years in federal prison for the false claim offense, along with the forfeiture of at least $4,197,981, which represents the proceeds obtained from these offenses. According to the indictment, between January 1, 2019, and February 22, 2021, Ward devised a scheme to defraud the IRS. As part of the scheme, he electronically submitted a false tax return to the IRS for a trust. Ward falsely reported that this trust had overpaid the IRS $4,159,229. He then received a $4,197,981.28 refund from the IRS based on the fraudulent representations he made on the tax return. Afterward, Ward used the refund money in transactions with title companies and a car dealership, including the purchase of four real properties in Chattanooga, Tennessee. An indictment is merely an allegation that a defendant has committed a federal criminal offense. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty. This case is being investigated by the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS CI). It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Hannah Nowalk. CI is the criminal investigative 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. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
