Queensland Cyber Crime Police made a major arrest of a 25 year old man and has charged him with more than 100 identity theft and fraud crimes. It was found that the Pine Rivers man had opened numerous bank accounts, 42 to be exact, and was able to steal 54 TFNs in order to file income tax returns and receive the subsequent tax refunds.
Authorities found that the man had used an online, self preparation tax service called myTax. The tax preparation service is still considered secure to it’s users because law enforcement doesn’t believe the Pine Rivers man acquired any of the stolen information from the website itself.
As the investigation continues, authorities hope to uncover how, or at least where, the man came to obtain the stolen information but for now they aren’t quite sure. Australia has been working tirelessly to combat cyber crime through various methods including the organizing of task forces and implementing better security features.
The ATO, or the Australian Taxation Office, issued a statement condemning criminals of this nature. Not only does identity theft and fraud of this nature affect government departments but it also hurts the public because it is tax payer money after all. The ATO continued to inform the public to always keep their PIN numbers and other sensitive information as secure as possible in order to avoid having it stolen.
Tax fraud is a very serious crime and it is believed that the courts will not go easy on this guy. He will get his day in court later this month on October 23, 2017 but the odds are certainly not in his favor. The public hopes to see more arrests like this arise from dedicated task force operations in the future and authorities are confident they will see plenty.
