MIAMI (AP) - Accounts used by South Florida college students to receive financial aid were used in a scheme to file fraudulent income tax returns using stolen identities.
Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said Tuesday that 21 people have been charged, most of them current or former students at Miami Dade College. The students were using their Higher One aid accounts to deposit fraudulent tax refunds.
Ferrer says the scheme involved $1.9 million in intended loss to the Internal Revenue Service, with nearly $500,000 paid out. There were at least 644 victims of identity theft in these cases.
Most of those arrested face between two and 10 years in prison if convicted.
The IRS says Florida, and particularly South Florida, is the nation's leading hotbed for ID theft used for tax fraud.
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