Innate life goals generally refer to the deeply ingrained desires or aspirations that most humans naturally possess. While not explicitly stated, finding love and money is often considered the most wanted of those life goals. Fraudsters target human wants and desires, for their own personal gain. So it stands to reason that tax fraud and romance fraud are the top schemes for fraudsters…like Thomas Addaquay, who formulated schemes involving stealing tax refunds, tricking businesses through email scams, and using fake relationships to take money from unsuspecting people across the country. These schemes caused millions of dollars in financial losses and hurt many people emotionally as well.
From at least 2011 to at least 2016, Addaquay obtained stolen names, Social Security Numbers, and dates of birth of taxpayers to prepare and file fraudulent federal income tax returns. The filing of these fraudulent tax returns resulted in the issuance of more than $4 million in tax refund checks, unbeknownst to the victims who had to face months of resolving the fraudulent tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.
In addition, Addaquay participated in schemes to defraud multiple victims through business email compromise and romance scams. Again, using false identities, this time he hacked email accounts which were used to gain the confidence of victims in order to divert their funds into his bank accounts. Victims across the country, who had only been hoping to find love, lost over $3 million because of his scams.
On February 15, 2025, Addaquay was sentenced to a combined term of imprisonment of 12 years and six months, followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay more than $7 million in restitution.
Excellent job by the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation and the United States Secret Service in this case.
Today’s Fraud of the Day is based on article “Atlanta-based fraudster sentenced to 12½ years in prison for various scams” published by The Atlanta Voice on February 15, 2025
Thomas Addaquay has been sentenced following his conviction of 30 felonies related to two nationwide fraud schemes involving tax refund, business email compromise, and romance fraud scams.
“Addaquay’s fraud schemes impacted numerous victims across the country and resulted in millions in losses to the IRS and private citizens,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Richard S. Moultrie, Jr. “The combined efforts of our federal and local law enforcement partners secured Addaquay’s successful prosecution and made it possible to obtain justice for the numerous innocent taxpayers whose lives were disrupted by this defendant’s criminal conduct and greed.”
