US citizen bags 18-month Imprisonment over collaborating with Nigerian man to defraud 12,000 taxpayers worth $6.7M
the black handcuffs on wooden background
US citizen Melvin Orellana, a resident of Georgia, was awarded an 18-month prison term in Nevada, United States, for taking part in a conspiracy involving identity theft.
Orellana worked as a computer support employee for a business that offered tax software to return preparation organizations around the country, according to a statement on the US Department of Justice website.
However, he provided King Isaac Umoren, a Nigerian living in Las Vegas, with private information on taxpayers, and Umoren carried out the fraud.
The Nigerian who ran the tax preparation business Universal Tax Services (UTS) used the information he got from Orellana to steal from the tax software industry.
Umoren profited from the fraud to the tune of $6.7 million between May 2016 and November 2017.
He sought out this taxpayer data in an effort to misrepresent the size of UTS’s clientele in order to deceitfully sell the company to an unwary purchaser.
After UTS was sold, Umoren agreed to pay Orellana $20,000 in recompense for the stolen taxpayer data.
Around 12,000 taxpayers’ data were given to Umoren by Orellana in August 2017 whose returns were prepared by companies utilizing the tax software.
Using this taxpayer data, Umoren sold UTS for $6.7 million in fraud in November 2017.
Orellana was sentenced to a term of imprisonment as well as three years of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon for the U.S. District Court of Nevada.
The statement was made by U.S. Attorney Jason M. Frierson for the District of Nevada and Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.
The case was looked into by the IRS Criminal Investigation and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
The case was pursued by trial attorneys Sarah A. Kiewlicz and Patrick Burns from the Tax Division of the Justice Department.
