Federal authorities charged [DOJ press release] 56 people on Thursday in an indictment [indictment, PDF; case materials] for fraud. The 56 people allegedly posed [USA Today report] as Internal Revenue Service agents and immigration authorities. They are accused of coning unwitting victims into paying them over $300 million in total to clear fake tax debts and fictitious deportation warrants. They allegedly relied on personal information obtained through data brokers to target more than 15,000 victims, and then laundered the money those victims paid with US co-conspirators using wire transfers and debit cards. Twenty of the 24 US suspects are in custody while 32 suspects are believed to be in India. The government has notified the Indian government about the case and hopes to prosecute the Indian co-conspirators in the US.

Fraud continues to be an important ssue for the Department of Justice (DOJ). In February the US House passed a bill [JURIST report] against the DOJ’s initiative aimed at removing certain industries from the banking system. In March 2015 the DOJ criticized [JURIST report] the US Sentencing Commission after they proposed reducing prison time for white-collar criminals who committed fraud. In July 2014 seven were arrested [JURIST report] after defrauding StubHub of approximately $1.6 million.