David Owen, a resident of Largo, Florida, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to commit mail fraud, extortion, money laundering, and various other fraud schemes. In addition to his sentence, Owen must pay $697,500 in restitution to the victims of his crimes.
Owen and his accomplice, Andrew Corrigan, ran a tax impersonation scheme by opening bank accounts as straw account owners, which would allow them to process transactions on behalf of another person. Owen and Corrigan led their victims to believe that they falsely owed money to the IRS and the Canadian tax authorities and demanded that they deposit money into these accounts. A joint investigation by the IRS, FBI, Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and the Canadian Mounted Police discovered that Owen and Corrigan were able to collect more than $850,000 using this method and in January 2018, Corrigan was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Owen also ran a fraud scheme that targeted 3 elderly people who were tricked into believing they had won a cash prize from Publishers Clearing House but just needed to provide their financial information and mail a large cashier’s check to a fake business set up in order to pre-pay taxes on the winnings. Owen collected over $315,000 with this scheme.
Andy Tsui, a special agent who deals with IRS criminal investigations, stated, “This sentence today represents a victory not just for the IRS, but for many hard-working Americans who have received an intimidating phone call from the perpetrators of this despicable scam.”
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