New Mexico woman pleads guilty to posing as a tax officer, defrauding victim of ₹1.4 crore

A 48-year-old woman from New Mexico has pleaded guilty to impersonating an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent to cheat a victim out of more than $150,000 (around ₹1.4 crore).A US woman duped man of ₹1.4 crore by posing as tax officer. (Unsplash)Sandra Vega, a resident of Pecos, admitted that she posed as a federal tax officer between 2018 and March 2026 to convince a man, identified in court documents as John Doe, that he was entitled to receive a large payment from the IRS, according to the US justice department.Vega told the victim that he needed to pay various fees and deposits before the money could be released, as per her plea agreement. Believing that the payments would be transferred to the IRS, the victim gave her at least $150,000. Vega, though, never sent the money to the tax agency and, instead, used the entire amount to cover her expenses.Vega pleaded guilty to five charges: four counts of wire fraud, involving the use of electronic communications to carry out a financial scam, and one count of falsely impersonating a federal employee.She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 (around ₹2.2 crore) and an order to repay the victim. The final punishment and restitution amount will be decided by the court during sentencing.Similar cases of IRS impersonation fraudVega's case is among several instances in which fraudsters have posed as US government officials to deceive people and extract money.In May, a Mexican national was sentenced to 48 months in prison for impersonating an IRS officer and convincing victims that he could help them recover hundreds of thousands of dollars through a fictitious government programme.Francisco Ivan Velazquez told people who had previously lost their homes to foreclosure that they could recover money by applying to the IRS and paying him a fee to file the necessary paperwork, the IRS revealed in a statement.In some cases, he also helped submit false tax returns seeking refunds of $100,000 or more. His scheme sought at least $1.8 million from the IRS.The court ordered him to pay approximately $199,198 in restitution to victims. More than a dozen people were targeted, many of whom were struggling to pay their home loans.In another case, an Ahmedabad man was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2020 for his role in a telephone fraud network that targeted US citizens.Hitesh Madhubhai Patel, 44, was convicted for operating and funding call centres in India that defrauded Americans of millions of dollars between 2013 and 2016. Employees at the call centres impersonated officials from the IRS and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), threatening victims with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did not pay money they allegedly owed to the government.Victims were instructed to make payments through wire transfers or prepaid cards. The money was then collected and laundered through a network of individuals based in the United States.Patel was ordered to pay $8.97 million in restitution to identified victims, in addition to serving his prison sentence. He had been extradited from Singapore to the US in April 2019 to face charges in the case.