Anthony “Boo Boo” Gosha And Thirty Conspirators Sentenced For Multi Million Dollar Stolen Identity Tax Refund Fraud Scheme

I had to read this case when the ring leader was named “Boo Boo”. This story reads like a movie:

According to the evidence presented at trial and sentencing, between November 2010 and December 2013, Gosha ran a large-scale identity theft ring with his co-conspirators, Tracy Mitchell, Keshia Lanier, and Tamika Floyd, who were all previously convicted and sentenced to prison. Together they filed over 8,800 tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that sought more than $22 million in fraudulent refunds of which the IRS paid out approximately $9 million.

In November 2010, Gosha stole IDs of inmates from the Alabama Department of Corrections and provided the IDs to Lanier who used the information to seek fraudulent tax refunds. Gosha and Lanier agreed to split the proceeds. Gosha also stole employee records from a company previously located in Columbus, Georgia. In 2012, Lanier needed an additional source of stolen IDs and approached Floyd, who worked at two Alabama state agencies in Opelika, Alabama: the Department of Public Health and the Department of Human Resources. In both positions, Floyd had access to the personal identifying information of individuals, including teenagers. Lanier requested that Floyd primarily provide her with identities that belonged to sixteen and seventeen year-olds. Floyd agreed and provided thousands of names to Lanier and others at Lanier’s direction.

After receiving the additional stolen IDs, Gosha recruited Mitchell and her family to help file the fraudulent tax returns. Mitchell worked at a hospital located at Fort Benning, Georgia, where she had access to the personal identification information of military personnel, including soldiers who were deployed to Afghanistan. She stole soldiers’ IDs and used their information to file fraudulent returns.

…

However, the financial institutions halted Gosha’s and his co-conspirators’ ability to print checks. As a result, they recruited U.S. Postal employees who provided Gosha and others with addresses on their routes to which the fraudulent refund checks could be directly mailed. In exchange for cash, these postal employees intercepted the refund checks and provided them to Gosha, Lanier, Mitchell and others. Gosha also directed tax refunds to prepaid debit cards and had those cards sent to addresses he controlled.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/phenix-city-resident-and-ringleader-multi-million-dollar-stolen-identity-tax-refund

In the end, Gosha has a 30 year prison sentence, 3 years of supervised release, and is on the hook for more than $9 million dollars in restitution.

Further Reading:

DrKeithJones.com

Anthony “Boo Boo” Gosha And Thirty Conspirators Sentenced For Multi Million Dollar Stolen Identity Tax Refund Fraud Scheme – eCrimeBytes Nibble #5

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