IR-2024-83, March 28, 2024, WASHINGTON-- 4 years after the enactment of an essential pandemic-era law, the Irs launched upgraded numbers showing Criminal Examination (CI) has investigated 1,644 tax and cash laundering cases connected to COVID scams potentially totaling $8.9 billion, with well over half that quantity originating from cases opened in the last year.

These cases consist of a wide range of criminal activity, including fraudulently gotten payments, credits and loans meant for American workers, families and small companies under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Since Feb. 29, 795 people have been prosecuted for their alleged COVID-related criminal activities and 373 people have been sentenced to approximately 34 months in federal prison. During the last four years, CI has obtained a 98.5% conviction rate in prosecuted COVID fraud cases.

" The work by IRS Criminal Investigation provides an essential role in safeguarding versus fraud and serves a key part in the agency's larger efforts to ensure fairness in the country's tax system," stated IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. "Protecting taxpayers versus scams in pandemic-era programs is just one example of the essential role that CI plays in the law enforcement community. A healthy spending plan for the IRS assists us do the job, and the work of CI offers an important safeguard to safeguard the nation against fraud."

Looking ahead, CI's ongoing fraud-protection work will be boosted by the extra moneying the IRS received through the Inflation Reduction Act, which is providing the firm with additional resources to ensure reasonable enforcement of the laws along with enhanced taxpayer service, new innovation and larger IRS improvement efforts.

" In the in 2015 alone, we have actually opened nearly 700 brand-new COVID fraud examinations that jointly add up to $5 billion in possible scams," stated CI Chief Guy Ficco. "While COVID may no longer be top of mind to the typical American when they awaken, the fraud committed through these different programs is quite top of mind to CI. Our unique agents continue to seek out scammers who stole cash from federal government loan programs for their individual gain."

Recent sentencings consist of:

Long Island guy sentenced to 10 years in jail for stretching COVID-19 loan fraud:

In March 2024, Rami Saab, also known as "Rami Hasan," was sentenced to 10 years in jail and required to pay $9.6 million in restitution for his role as the mastermind behind a sprawling conspiracy to fraudulently obtain loans in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Saab and a network of co-conspirators fraudulently applied for more than $32 million in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program (EIDL) on behalf of shell corporations they managed.

Toledo area guy sentenced to 94 months in jail for COVID scams:

Terrence L. Pounds was sentenced in March 2024 to 94 months in prison and bought to pay more than $4.2 million dollars to the SBA after being founded guilty of conspiracy to devote wire fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Pounds and his co-defendants developed a plan to get SBA-financed loans from the EIDL Program and the PPP under incorrect pretenses, often claiming the loans were for nonprofit, faith-based organizations with over $1 million in earnings and 15 workers. He successfully obtained countless dollars in loans and after that used the money to buy a number of new vehicles, which were later surrendered to the U.S. federal government.

The CARES Act was signed into law on March 27, 2020, to supply emergency monetary assistance to millions of Americans experiencing the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

CI encourages the public to share details relating to understood or presumed scams tied to the CARES Act by contacting their regional CI field office. Contact information for each CI field office is listed in the department's annual report.

CI is the police arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime examinations, including tax scams, 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 infractions of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a nearly 90% federal conviction rate. The firm has 20 field workplaces located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.