14 charged in stolen ID tax fraud

A 14-member gang alleged to have used stolen identities in a tax refund scheme have been charged in five criminal complaints with conspiracy to defraud the United States and other counts of theft of government property. More than 8,000 phony income tax returns were filed requesting $65 million in refund. The theft – said to have begun as early as 2007 – amounted to $11.3 million in losses. The defendants were arrested on Wednesday morning following an investigation by a multi-agency task force in New Jersey led by investigators from the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Postal Inspection Service. Ten members of the gang appeared in Newark federal court on Wednesday. Others appeared in federal courts in New York, Michigan and North Carolina.