The number of people committing tax fraud jumped by 112 percent from fiscal year 2024, according to a new IRS report.
The IRS Criminal Investigation released its fiscal year 2025 report.
The report details how IRS-CI’s 3,000 employees worked to stop financial crime. The report identified $10.59 billion in financial crimes during FY25, which took place from Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2025.
“IRS-CI’s team combines financial expertise with investigative precision to protect taxpayers and hold criminals accountable,” said IRS CEO Frank Bisignano. “They provide both a tangible return on investment, while providing for the safety and security of American citizens.”
IRS-CI’s investigative strategy produces quantifiable results. In FY25, IRS-CI investigators identified financial crimes totaling $10.59 billion, representing a 15.7 percent increase from FY24. Of the $10.59 billion, $4.5 billion resulted from tax fraud, marking an increase of 111.8 percent from FY24. The agency also saw a 25 percent increase in search warrants and a 14 percent increase in prosecution referrals to the Department of Justice during the same timeframe.
“Our work plays an integral role in shutting down criminal networks that try to exploit government programs and launder funds,” said IRS-CI Chief Guy Ficco. “We continue to evolve – integrating new technological tools, expanding our global partnerships, and streamlining operations – to make it harder for criminals to hide.”
The number of cases with a cyber component also continued to grow in fiscal year 2025, with IRS-CI seizing 2.35 petabytes of digital data, a nearly 60 percent increase from the previous fiscal year. Additionally, IRS-CI special agents seized more than $800 million in assets and returned $100 million to crime victims in fiscal year 25.
IRS-CI targeted the most urgent financial crime threats. In fiscal year 25, the agency dedicated nearly 64 percent of investigative time to tax crimes, often using data analytics to uncover tax fraud and payroll schemes. Eleven percent focused on narcotics-related crimes, resulting in 447 convictions during the fiscal year. The agency continued to target cyber criminals who victimize others through investment and fraud schemes. In FY25, cyber-related cases resulted in defendants being sentenced to an average of 63 months in prison for their crimes.
The IRS-CI team served integral roles in Operation Safe and Beautiful in Washington, D.C., and the Restoring Law and Order Task Force in Memphis, Tennessee, and assisted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with immigration enforcement efforts. Approximately 190 special agents were also detailed to Homeland Security Task Forces, where they used their specialized expertise in financial investigations to enforce federal law and protect national security.
This year, IRS-CI announced CI-FIRST (Feedback in Response to Strategic Threats), a flagship public-private partnership to modernize how IRS-CI works with financial institutions. CI-FIRST addresses Bank Secrecy Act challenges by providing feedback to help banks understand what is most helpful to investigators. IRS-CI’s Optimizing Financial Records Requests initiative, commonly known as OFRR, accelerates investigative timelines by streamlining and standardizing how IRS-CI requests and how financial institutions respond to legal and subpoena requests.
In fiscal year 25, several defendants in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme were sentenced. The scheme – one of the largest pandemic-related fraud cases in U.S. history – involved the theft of more than $250 million in federal child-nutrition funds intended to feed low-income children. The leader of the scheme, Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, was sentenced to 28 years in prison.
Both Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, a married couple responsible for the 2016 Bitfinex hack and laundering nearly $71 million, were sentenced to federal prison. Lichtenstein received a five-year prison sentence for his role in the scheme, and Morgan was sentenced to 18 months.
Haiping Pan, a Chinese national, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for laundering and attempting to launder $62 million for drug traffickers in Mexico.
The IRS-CI’s investigation into TD Bank revealed an anti-money laundering program rife with flaws that allowed more than $670 million of dirty money to pass through the TD Bank accounts from 2019 to 2023. The bank pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act and money laundering conspiracy violations and agreed to pay a record-breaking $1.8 billion in penalties to resolve the Justice Department’s investigation.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join Townhall VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member