IRS believes identity thieves from Russia
Information stolen for fraudulent tax refund scheme.
— IRS in-WASHINGTON vestigators believe the identity thieves who stol e the personal tax information of more than 100,000 taxpayers from an IRS website are part of a sophisticated criminal operation based in Russia, two offici al s told the Associated Press.
The information was stolen as part of an elaborate scheme to claim fraudulent tax refunds, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told reporters. Koskinen declined to say where the crime originated.
But two offici al s briefed on the matter said Wednesday the IRS believes the criminals were in Russia, based on computer data about who accessed the information. The officials spoke on condit ion of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing crimi nal investigation.
An IRS spokeswoman said Wednesday the agenc y couldn’t comment on the investigation.
The revelation highlights the global reach of many cyber criminals. And it’s not the first time the IRS has been targeted by identity thieves based overseas.
In 2012, the IRS sent a total of 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania, and 343 refunds went to a lone address in Shanghai, according to a report by the agency’s inspec tor general. The IRS has since added safeguards to prevent similar schemes, but the criminals are innovating as well.
The information was taken from an IRS website called “Get Transcript,” where taxpayers can get tax returns and other tax filings from previous years. In order to access the information, the thieves cl eared a security screen that required detailed knowledge about each taxpayer, including their Social Securi ty number, date of birth, tax filing status and street address.
The IRS believe s the criminals originally obtained this information from other sources. They were accessing the IRS website to get even more information about the taxpayers, which would help them claim fraudulent tax refunds in the future, Koskinen said.
The thieves have already used some of the information to claim as much as $50 million in fraudulent tax refunds, Koskinen sai d.
“We’re confident that these are not amateurs,” Koskinen said. “These actually are organized crime syndicates that not only we but everybody in the financial indust ry are dealing with.”
The IRS believe s the thieves started targeting the website in February. Technicians discovered the breach about two weeks ago, when they noticed an inc rease in the number of taxpayers seeking transcripts. The website was shut down last week.