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May 21, 2019

Indictment Unsealed - Three More Individuals Plus a Business Charged in IRS Impersonation Scam

On March 8, 2019, in the Northern District of Georgia, an indictment was unsealed revealing charges against three individuals and a business who allegedly engaged in a scheme to impersonate U.S. Government officials in order to extort money from victims. Defendants Mohit Devendrabhai Sharma, Julliette Belle Carter, Kunal Jagdishbhai Sharma, and Skyz International Outsourcing and BPO were charged with wire fraud conspiracy and wire fraud. Mohit Sharma and Carter each were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering as well.

The indictment alleges that from about February 2014 through about November 2017, the four defendants knowingly and willfully conspired with each other and others to unjustly enrich themselves by impersonating Federal officials and inducing victims to pay fictitious back taxes, fines, and penalties.

Specifically, the defendants allegedly contacted victims located across the United States by telephone and purported to be an official from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) seeking to collect outstanding taxes, penalties, or fines. They would also routinely leave voicemail messages threatening the victims with an “enforcement action” if they did not immediately return the call and would threaten the victims with prosecution or arrest if the alleged debts were not paid immediately. The conspirators obtained the victims’ personally identifiable information, used purchased “Lead Lists,” and followed IRS impersonation call scripts that included fraudulent IRS employees’ names and Internal Revenue Code sections.

The callers instructed the victims to go to banks or ATMs to withdraw money and then send the money electronically using banks or money service businesses such as MoneyGram®. Mohit Sharma, Carter, and others would then retrieve the fraudulent proceeds from various MoneyGram locations.

If convicted, the defendants could face a maximum statutory sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment for wire fraud.

Source:  The facts in this case narrative come from the following publicly available documents: N.D. Ga. Indict. filed May 15, 2018; N.D. Ga. Crim. Docket as of Apr. 4, 2019.