According to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice, two family members in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, were recently convicted of stealing Stimulus Checks and defrauding the government of $500,000 by filing false tax returns.
The press announcement also stated that a third relative had been placed on probation.
Ivo Krasimirov Ivanov, the mother of Donna Karakatsani, received a 1.5-year prison term while his mother received a two-year sentence. After the IRS began looking into them in 2020, their sentences have been handed down. To file tax returns, Karakatsani and Ivanov mostly utilized names of foreigners, mostly from Bulgaria.
The Two Families Have Been Stealing Stimulus Checks From Families
According to the press release, the IRS started looking into the family in 2020 for fake Stimulus Checks and stolen refunds. To file Stimulus Checks in the names of the foreigners they targeted—usually those from Bulgaria—who were visiting the United States.
According to the press statement, the foreigners were attracted over the internet and were principally given educational credits to which they were not legally entitled.
According to the press announcement, the family hired others to register bank accounts so they could transfer the refunds into them and gave each account holder $100. 68 bank accounts with 14 different names were opened at 16 different banks. According to the press release, hundreds of stimulus payments were automatically transferred into the banks the family had set up due to the bogus Stimulus Checks that had previously been filed. The family pocketed the monies for themselves even though they knew they were not entitled to them, nor were the foreigners whose returns they had filed.
According to the press release, the family scammed the government of $530,292.60 in total.
According to the press release, U.S. District Judge Sherri A. Lydon condemned the family.
