Dive Brief:

• A Pittsburgh federal grand jury issued a 21-count indictment against Yoandy Perez Llanes, charging him with defrauding the IRS and U.S. Treasury, wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft.  
• Thousands of stolen identities of UPMC employees were used to file 935 false tax refunds for a total of $1.4 million, which was converted to Amazon gift cards. The purchased electronic merchandise was shipped overseas and later sold on online auction websites. 
• Hackers obtained employees' names, social security numbers, dates of birth and other personal information to file the tax returns. Llanes and conspirators used anonymous and encrypted emails to file the 2013 returns. If found guilty, the law provides jail time and/or a $5.5 million fine. 

Dive Insight:

A recent study, the Fifth Annual Study on Medical Identity Theft, showed that 2.32 million Americans are victims of medical identity theft, including 500,000 in the past year alone. The study also showed this has been increasing over the past five years and 65% of victims had to pay $13,500 on average to resolve the crime. Security experts say the value of healthcare information is more valuable than credit cards because it contains social security numbers, dates of birth, medical conditions and contact information of family members.