Zimbabwean man jailed for US tax fraud http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=27630
March 1, 2010
By Our Correspondent
SHERMAN, Texas – A Zimbabwean man who conspired with four compatriots to commit tax fraud amounting to millions of dollars in the United States was on Friday jailed for five years.
The convicted man, Simbarashe Soko, who conspired with, among others, Karimanjira-Dumba Made, the son of Joseph Made, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Agricultural Mechanisation, was also ordered to undergo three years
supervised release and pay restitution of $3 097 822.65.
He was convicted after he changed his plea to guilty. He was arrested along with four others following an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation in Dallas in 2008.
Previously, Soko had denied the charge.
Changing his plea to guilty, he said: “I secured loan proceeds from banks through which I, or others acting on my behalf, established a business relationship. The banks extended the loans in anticipation of the receipt of
tax refunds based on my false representations that the tax refund claims were legitimate.
“I, or others acting on my behalf, cashed the checks representing the tax refunds or tax refund anticipation loans. Three banks, J.P Morgan Chase, Santa Barbara Bank and Trust, and HSBC, suffered combined actual losses of
$2 253 207. The United States (IRS) suffered an actual loss of $844 615.”
Soko committed the fraud together with Ransom Nyamaharo, Ronald Moyo and Made.
Fellow Zimbabweans in Dallas have confirmed that Made is the son of the minister.
The son is now serving a sentence of 60 months in a federal prison for tax fraud after he was convicted by a jury on January 16 last year. Nyamaharo (24) of Plano, Texas, was sentenced to 10 years for the same crime.
The facts presented by the prosecution were that from 2005 to 2008, Karimanjira Made, Soko, Moyo and Nyamaharo opened and operated a tax preparation businesses in which they prepared and filed fraudulent tax
returns on behalf of clients.
They also prepared and filed tax returns in the names of individuals whose personal identifying information had been obtained and used without authorization.
Nyamaharo, Soko, Moyo and Made established business relationships with several banks which offered refund anticipation loans. The false claims for income tax refunds were submitted to the Internal Revenue Service and also to the banks.
The banks, relying upon the accuracy of the information provided to them, authorized the issuance of loans secured by the false income tax refund claims.
The Internal Revenue Service and the banks incurred substantial losses as a result of the payments made on the false claims for federal income tax refunds.
The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Randall A. Blake and Shamoil Shipchandler.
A source knowledgeable about the fraud case said the police were summoned to investigate a complaint by a hotel guest about excessive noise at night emanating from another hotel room in the city of Sherman back in 2008.
The room was one of a number that had been booked by a group of Zimbabweans.
On entering the room to investigate the source of the noise, the police were surprised to find several people inside, each armed with a laptop. They also found a large number of social security cards in the room. Their suspicion immediately aroused, they seized the laptops and cards and took away one of the people in the room back to the police station.
The man’s name appeared on a list of suspects wanted by the police in connection with a major tax fraud case. By the time the police arrived back at the hotel some of the group had already checked out with some reportedly
making immediate arrangements to travel back to Zimbabwe.