Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/478363
ByStephenOhlemacher The Associated Press WASHINGTON Fake IRS agents have targeted more than 366,000 people with harassing phone calls de- manding payments and threatening jail in the larg- est scam of its kind in the history of the agency, a federal investigator said Thursday. More than 3,000 peo- ple have fallen for the ruse since 2013, said Timothy Camus, a Treasury deputy inspector general for tax administration. They were conned out of a total of $15.5 million. The scam has claimed victims in almost every state, Camus said. One un- identified victim lost more than $500,000. "The criminals do not discriminate. They are call- ing people everywhere, of all income levels and back- grounds," Camus told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing. "The callers of- ten warned the victims that if they hung up, local police would come to their homes to arrest them." The scam is so wide- spread that investigators believe there is more than one group of perpetrators, including some overseas. Camus said even he re- ceived a call from one of the scammers at his home on a Saturday. He said he had a stern message for the caller: "Your day will come." Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said he got a similar call, but realized it wasn't a real IRS agent. "It was a very convinc- ing, convincing phone call," Isakson said. So far, two people in Flor- ida have been arrested, Ca- mus said. They were ac- cused of being part of a scam that involved people in call centers in India con- tacting U.S. taxpayers and pretending to be IRS agents. "These criminal acts are perpetrated by thieves hid- ing behind telephone lines and computers, preying on honest taxpayers and rob- bing the Treasury of tens of billions of dollars ev- ery year," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Com- mittee. "Taxpayers must be more aware of the risks and better protected from at- tack and these criminals must be found and brought to justice." The IRS and the inspec- tor general's office started warning taxpayers about the scam a year ago, and it has since ballooned. This year, it tops the IRS list of "Dirty Dozen" tax scams. Tax scams often increase during tax filing season, and with millions of Amer- icans preparing their re- turns ahead of the April 15 deadline, the IRS is seeing many cases of identity theft and refund fraud. In recent years the IRS has stepped up efforts to detect large numbers of tax refunds going to the same address or bank account. Using computer filters, the agency identified more than 517,000 suspicious re- turns and blocked $3.1 bil- lion in fraudulent returns, as of October 2014, Camus said in his testimony. In 2012, the IRS started working more closely with U.S. attorneys'offices around the country to combat tax re- fund fraud by people using stole identities, said Caroline Ciraolo, acting assistant at- torney general for the Jus- tice Department's tax divi- sion. Since then, the tax divi- sion has opened nearly 1,000 investigations and brought prosecutions against more than 1,400 people, Ciraolo told the Senate Finance Committee hearing. "Given the sophistication of this criminal activity and the fact that a lot of it comes from overseas, this looks to me like an emerging type of organized crime," said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Fi- nance Committee. The inspector gener- al's office started receiving complaints about the tele- phone scam in 2013. Immi- grants were the primary target early on, the IG's of- fice said. But the scam has since become more wide- spread. As part of the telephone scam, fake IRS agents call taxpayers, claim they owe taxes, and demand payment using a prepaid debit card or a wire transfer. Those who refuse are threatened with arrest, deportation or loss of a business or driver's license, Camus said. The callers can manip- ulate caller ID to make it look like they are calling from an IRS phone number. They might even know the last four digits of the tax- payer's Social Security num- ber, Camus said. They request prepaid debit cards because they are harder to trace than bank cards. Prepaid debit cards are different from bank cards because they are not connected to a bank ac- count. Instead, consumers buy the cards at stores, and use them just like a bank card, until the money runs out or they add more. Real IRS agents usu- ally contact people first by mail, Camus said. And they never demand payment by debit card, credit card or wire transfer. TAXES Fa ke I RS a ge nt s ta rg et m or e th an 3 66 ,0 00 i n sc am SUSANWALSH—THEASSOCIATEDPRESSFILE Real IRS agents usually first contact people by mail and never demand payment by debit, credit card or wire transfer. By Alicia A. Caldwell and Josh Lederman The Associated Press WASHINGTON A presiden- tial spokesman expressed confidence Thursday in the Secret Service director de- spite a new investigation into two agents accused of driving into a White House security barrier after a night of drinking. White House spokesman Eric Schultz said President Barack Obama was dis- appointed to learn about the March 4 incident. But Obama believes the direc- tor, Joseph Clancy, is the right person to address the agency's problems. "Nobody has higher stan- dards for the Secret Ser- vice than Director Clancy," Schultz said. Clancy has asked the Homeland Security Depart- ment's internal watchdog, rather than the Secret Ser- vice, to investigate, Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback said. The agency said the agents have been reassigned to nonsupervi- sory, nonoperational jobs. The Washington Post first disclosed the investi- gation, reporting that the agents drove a government car into the security barrier after attending a party for a retiring agent. The Post reported that one of the agents, Mark Connolly, is the second-in- command on Obama's secu- rity detail. The newspaper identified the other agent as George Ogilvie, a senior su- pervisor in the Washington field office. The leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — Re- publican chairman Jason Chaffetz of Utah and top Democrat Elijah Cum- mings of Maryland — is- sued a statement saying the involvement of senior-level agents "is not only embar- rassing but exhibits a clear lack of judgment in a poten- tially dangerous situation." In the past six months, several top agency offi- cials, including former Di- rector Julia Pierson, have been forced out amid reve- lations of security breaches. In September, a Texas man with a knife scaled a White House fence and run deep into the executive mansion before being apprehended. An internal investigation and an outside panel report described serious problems within the agency. A four-member panel of former senior government officials concluded that the agency was too insular and starving for leadership. It recommended an agency outsider to replace Pier- son, but Obama went with Clancy. The retired agent had led the agency tempo- rarily after Pierson left. Incidents of drunken be- havior have plagued the agency since at least April 2012, when more than a dozen agents and officers were caught up in a pros- titution scandal in advance of a presidential visit to Cartagena, Colombia. Also that year, an officer from the uniformed divi- sion was arrested after be- ing found drunk and passed out on a Miami street cor- ner about 12 hours after a presidential visit. In 2014 an agent on a trip to the Netherlands was in- volved in a drunken inci- dent in a hotel. Weeks ear- lier, two agents in Florida were involved in a traffic accident that The Post re- ported involved alcohol. Neither agent was charged by local police. After the Colombia scan- dal, then-Director Mark Sul- livan issued new conduct rules for agents and offi- cers who were traveling, in- cluding ordering that agents stop drinking 10 hours be- fore reporting to duty. Agents and officers have also been ordered to drink alcohol only "in moderate amounts while off duty," according to an updated Secret Service professional conduct manual obtained by The Associated Press. The new rules would not have applied to the agents involved in the March 4 crash because they both are stationed in Washington. CRASH Obama still confident in Secret Service chief, spokesman says 2 Ifso,youlikelyknowbynow! But if you have not yet placed an ad to say THANK YOU to your customers who voted you #1 in your business category, better call your Daily News advertising representative right away! (530) 527-2151 Is YOUR business one of THE BEST? DEADLINE for space reservations in the official "Best of Tehama" annual edition is Wednesday, March 18 at noon. N EWS D AILY RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY Thiscouldbeyourluckyday by helping a dog or cat find a loving home from... Ad Sponsorship $ 25 Call Suzy 737-5056 RedBluffDailyNews ELI Paws & Claws TEHAMACOUNTYANIMAL SHELTER 1830 Walnut Street P.O. Box 38 • Red Bluff, CA 96080 (530) 527-3439 CORNING ANIMAL SHELTER 4312 Rawson Rd. Corning, CA 96021 (530) 824-7054 ADOPT A PET TODAY FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM | NEWS | 5 B