A US court has sentenced a Nigerian, Kunle Sodipo Williams, to six and a half years in prison over a stolen identity fraud scheme that sought more than $12 million in tax refunds.
Williams, who lives in St. Louis, Missouri, was charged with mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, voter fraud and illegal re-entry to the US.
He is said to have used public school employees’ identification stolen from a payroll company to file more than 2,000 fraudulent federal tax returns to the tune of $12 million in refunds.
Williams also used fraudulently obtained identification numbers to get refund checks.
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Williams is also accused of stealing several return preparer’s electronic filing identification numbers and used them to secure tax-related bank products and services that facilitated the issuance of tax refunds, to include blank check stock and debit cards.
He then used the blank stock to print checks funded by the fraudulent refunds and directed some of the refunds onto debit cards.
In July, Williams pleaded guilty to the charge in an Alabama court.
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The court on Friday also also ordered him to pay roughly $900,000 in restitution to the IRS.
Williams now faces a period of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and deportation.
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