On January 27, 2020, Ronnell Taylor, Jr. was arrested. Taylor had previously been indicted in the Western District of Pennsylvania for wire fraud conspiracy on January 16, 2020.

According to the indictment, the conspiracy involved impersonators calling victims across the United States and impersonating employees from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS impersonators left voicemails instructing victims to contact the IRS at specific phone numbers. When unsuspecting victims called the numbers provided, their calls were automatically forwarded to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone numbers and routed to the IRS impersonators, who then extorted money from the victims to pay alleged tax debts.

Beginning in March 2016 and continuing through August 2017, Taylor and his codefendants, Michael Galanis and Barry Nealer, activated Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards and programmed prepaid cell phones to automatically forward calls to VoIP phone numbers. Taylor supplied the codefendants with prepaid SIM cards to activate and instructed his codefendants on how to activate them and program the cell phone numbers associated with the SIM cards to forward calls to VoIP phone numbers.

Victims were called by an IRS impersonator, who directed victims to wire money, purchase stored value cards, purchase iTunes gift cards, purchase Target retail store gift cards, or purchase gift cards to pay alleged tax debts. The IRS impersonators defrauded victims in amounts totaling approximately $89,000.

On January 27, 2020, Taylor made his initial appearance and was released on a $20,000 unsecured bond. Additional legal actions are pending.

Source:  The facts in this case narrative come from the following publicly available documents: W.D. Pa. Indict. filed Jan. 16, 2020; and W.D. Pa. Record of Magistrate's Proceedings, filed Jan. 28, 2020.