Miami, Florida – Fifty-one-year-old Kevin Dewayne Kirby was sentenced yesterday in federal district court in Ft. Lauderdale to 57 months in federal prison for laundering over $500,000 connected to two wire fraud scams.
The first was an IRS tax scam, which generally worked the following way: A fraudster, pretending to be from the IRS, called victims and convinced them that they owed back taxes to the IRS. The fraudster would threaten arrest and other legal action if the tax obligations were not immediately paid. Fearing the threats, victims wired their money to bank accounts that Kirby or his co-conspirators controlled.
The second scam was one involving computer services, which generally worked the following way: Fraudsters, pretending to work for a fake computer service company, called victims and told them that they had to pay a fee to fix or update their computers. Alternatively, the fraudsters told the victims that the fake computer company owned them refunds. Victims allowed the fraudsters remote access to their computers, which the fraudsters used to transfer funds from the victims’ savings accounts, brokerage accounts, or home equity accounts into the victims’ checking accounts. During this process, the fraudsters manipulated the online appearance of the victims’ accounts so that the transfers could not be seen or detected. After making the transfers, the fraudsters would contact the victims and convinced them that the fake computer company…
