Arkansas woman admits fake IRS scheme

Cuban is 2nd to plead guilty over role in tax-debt fraud

A 21-year-old woman admitted Friday that she used a fake name to pick up $3,720.30 in cash that a man wired from Laredo, Texas, to a Wal-Mart store in Lonoke under threat of arrest by a caller pretending to be with the IRS.

Federal prosecutors say Jeniffer Valerino Nunez, a Cuban from Mexico, was part of a conspiracy that defrauded close to 800 people across the country, including several in Arkansas, by leading them to believe they owed an outstanding debt to the government and would be arrested or sued if they didn't immediately pay up.

On Friday afternoon, Nunez stood stood before U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson in bright yellow jail clothing next to defense attorney Sonia Fonticiella Rios of Miami, wiping her eyes and sniffling. Wilson interrupted to ask if she'd like a tissue, then directed a court security officer to hand her some, which she used to stem the flow of tears.

"Just slow down," Wilson told her. "We're not in a hurry."

Wilson asked the woman in Spanish if she spoke any English, and she said she didn't. He then said he knew very little Spanish, and joked that his wife and kids regularly speak Spanish in front of him and he suspects they are talking about him.

Through an interpreter, Wilson outlined the details of the wire-fraud conspiracy allegation against Nunez and nine other people who have been indicted in the Eastern District of Arkansas since last year in the nationwide scheme. There are other cases involving the scheme that are based in federal courts in Minnesota, Mississippi and Texas.

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Hunter Bridges told Wilson that an investigation leading to the Arkansas case began Dec. 14, 2015, when an agent for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration received a call from a man in Kentucky saying he had been forced to pay $3,720.30 for an unknown tax liability by someone who called and claimed to be with the IRS.

The man, identified only as Victim 1, said he was ordered to use a wire service in a Wal-Mart store in Laredo to wire the money to Natalie Monroe, a U.S. treasury employee based in Little Rock, who would receive it on the other end.

Bridges said camera footage later showed Nunez, masquerading as Monroe, picking up the cash from a Wal-Mart in Lonoke on Dec. 9, 2015.

Bridges said Nunez eventually admitted to authorities that she had used "a number of aliases" to collect $1.4 million in cash from 1,053 victims of the scheme in at least 24 cities across the country. Bridges said federal agents learned that Nunez regularly traveled with Dennis Delgado Caballero, 39, of Miami, who also used multiple identities and was arrested with Nunez on May 23, 2016, in Miami. The two were indicted together in Little Rock on June 8, 2016.

Like Nunez did Friday, Caballero pleaded guilty before Wilson on May 4 to a single count of wire-fraud conspiracy, in return for 21 other charges being dropped. Caballero is to be sentenced at 10 a.m. Aug. 10, while Wilson set Nunez's sentencing date for 10:30 a.m. Oct. 26.

Their indictment was superseded April 4 to add eight defendants, seven of whom were arrested in Florida on April 25 and one who remains a fugitive. Among them, all Cubans, is Angel Chapotin Carrillo, 42, who was identified in an earlier hearing as one of the main "runners" who picked up the cash at locations across the country, and "arguably the No. 2 or No. 3 person in the scheme."

In the earlier hearing that resulted in Carrillo being detained until trial, a federal agent testified that Yosvany Padilla, 26, is believed to be "the main leader of this particular group."

In addition to Padilla, Carrillo, Nunez and Caballero, the other defendants indicted in Arkansas are Ricardo Fontanella Caballero, 25; Elio Carballo Cruz, 40; Esequiel Bravo Diaz, 23; Lazaro Hernandez Fleitas, 34; Alfredo Echevarria Rios, 43; and Alejandro Valdes, 25. All are from Florida. Fleitas remains at large.

Bridges said Friday that information gleaned from the Facebook pages of Nunez and Caballero showed they were in the same places, at the same time, where some of the money was picked up as part of the scheme.

Wilson asked Bridges how the callers, or the people who directed the callers, knew whom to victimize in the scheme. Bridges said he didn't know but that he had heard agents say the victims came from a wide variety of places and backgrounds and were generally people who were "marginalized in some way."

Most of them, he said, had been involved in situations before that led them to regard transferring money by wire as "an easy way to stay out of trouble."

Nationwide, the scheme is believed to have resulted in the theft of nearly $9 million, authorities have said.

Metro on 07/22/2017

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