Woman deported over tax scheme involving hacked UPMC IDs

A woman from Venezuela was deported Friday after she admitted that she was among a group of conspirators who filed bogus U.S. tax returns using employee identifications stolen from UPMC’s internal computer system.

Maritza Maxima Soler Nodarse, 62, a Cuban national who lives in Venezuela, pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to what the U.S. Attorney’s office said was a minor role on the “back end” of the scheme.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Melucci said she and her cohorts took advantage of the stolen IDs, which were purchased online, but was not involved in the 2014 hack of UPMC’s computers.

U.S. District Judge Mark Hornak sentenced her to time served since her arrest in Colombia in March 2016, about 16 months, and ordered the U.S. marshals to remove her to Venezuela.

The sentence and deportation were part of a plea deal she struck with prosecutors.

“She desperately just wants to get back to her family,” said her lawyer, Randall McKinney.

Speaking through an interpreter, Nodarse said only that she agreed with the government’s

recitation of her crimes and was ready to be sentenced.

“I feel that there’s no reason to keep you in the U.S. one minute longer,” the judge told her.

Nodarse was accused of conspiring with Yoandy Perez Llanes, 33, also a Cuban native living in Venezuela, and several other unnamed suspects in an online refund scheme of the type that has become increasingly common in the federal courts.

Called stolen identity refund frauds, or SIRFs, the scams rip off the U.S. Treasury and are among the top priorities of the criminal division of the IRS.

Several other similar cases have been prosecuted in Western Pennsylvania in recent years.

This one was different from many in that it involved foreign nationals. Former U.S. Attorney David Hickton had pointed to the extradition of Mr. Llanes and Nodarse as examples of his office’s determination to bring international criminals to the U.S. courts.

Mr. Llanes pleaded guilty in April to money laundering conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.

He and Nodarse were among a group of people who took advantage of thousands of UPMC W-2 forms stolen by hackers and sold in an online marketplace in 2014.

The Secret Service and the IRS in Pittsburgh are working to identify and prosecute the hackers, who stole some 62,000 employee identifications.

In the meantime, prosecutors have gone after those who bought the stolen data.

Prosecutors say Mr. Llanes, Nodarse and others filed bogus tax returns using the W-2s and obtained about $1.4 million in illegal refunds from the U.S. Treasury.

They then used the money to buy Amazon.com credits, a monetizing service offered through TurboTax, to buy electronics, which were then sent through re-shipping companies in Miami to several hotels in Venezuela. There, the conspirators sold the merchandise online.

Federal agents connected Nodarse to the others through recovered cell phone data and email accounts.

As part of her sentence, Nodarse will have to pay a money judgment of $1.4 million along with the others in the scheme, including Mr. Llanes. He will be sentenced next month.