IRS Criminal Investigation Agency's top 10 cases for 2023.

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The IRS (Criminal Investigation Service) has published a list of its top ten cases for 2023 on its social media accounts.

"Billions of dollars in fraud, victims around the world, and criminals who are all about personal gain. Here is the essence of the top ten leading cases for 2023," said CI CEO Jim Lee. "When I say our CI team is the best at tracking money trail, I mean it. Our investigators uncovered international tax schemes that relied on people's personal information, investigated multi-level marketing schemes involving cryptocurrency, and uncovered one of the largest fraud schemes in history involving renewable fuel credits. "

The cases on the list include some of the most high-profile and extraordinary investigations the agency has conducted in the past year.

Ayodele Arasokun was sentenced to 34 years in prison for orchestrating an international tax fraud scheme involving transfer fraud and identity theft. Alakosun coordinated a scheme to file 1,701 false tax returns and requested a refund of $9.1 million (the IRS issued $2.2 million). He then transferred the money to prepaid debit cards and accounts he controlled - the investigation found that Alakosun had about 700 accounts in the U.S. totaling more than $50 million.

Eduard Kim was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for various crimes, including fraud related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Kim and his co-conspirators submitted approximately 459 fraudulent applications for unemployment benefits using the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and other personal information of inmates in California state prisons and others. In total, they managed to get about $5,458,050 in fake unemployment benefits.

Amir Bruno Elmaani, known as Bruno Block, founder of the Oyster Pearl cryptocurrency, was sentenced to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $5.5 million in restitution. In 2017, Elmaani began promoting a new cryptocurrency called Pearl tokens. He said he plans to develop an online storage platform known as the Oyster protocol, which will allow users to buy online storage using Pearl tokens. Elmaani used friends and family as nominees to receive cryptocurrency proceeds and transfer them to his accounts. Elmaianni failed to file a tax return and claimed he had no income that was subject to IRS taxation in 2018. However, in the same year, Elmaani spent more than $10 million on several yachts, $1.6 million in a carbon composite company, hundreds of thousands of dollars in a home goods store, and more than $700,000 to buy two homes. Elmaani pleaded guilty on April 5, 2023, and admitted that he secretly issued and sold Pearl cryptocurrency tokens for his personal enrichment, causing the price of Pearl tokens to collapse. He also admitted that he failed to pay tax on certain cryptocurrency profits, resulting in more than $5.5 million in tax loss.

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