New York man arrested for bank fraud and identity theft in connection with stolen $810,000 tax refund check

Date: Sept. 11, 2024

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BOSTON - A Yonkers, N.Y., man was arrested yesterday in connection with a scheme to steal an $810,000 tax refund by impersonating a corporate executive in Connecticut.

Steven Ware was charged by criminal complaint with one count of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Ware was arrested yesterday in Yonkers and following an initial appearance in federal court in New York, was released on conditions.

According to charging documents, Ware opened bank accounts in the name of a Connecticut company and one of its managing partners at a credit union in Tyngsborough, Mass. in December 2023. Shortly after opening the account, Ware deposited a United States Treasury check payable to the company and the managing partner for $810,337.68. Once the check cleared, a debit card was allegedly used to withdraw money from the account to buy goods at various retailers in New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Ware allegedly returned to the Tyngsborough credit union several times and wired more than $634,000 of the stolen funds.

The charge of bank fraud provides for a sentence of up to 30 years in prison, five years of supervised release and a fine of up to $1,000,000. The charge of aggravated identity theft provides for a mandatory two years in prison, in addition to any sentence imposed for bank fraud, one year of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy; Harry Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Boston Field Office; Jodi Cohen, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; and Ketty Larco-Ward, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service's Boston Division made the announcement today. Valuable assistance was provided by the Tyngsborough Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kriss Basil of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.

The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.