Deltona, FL – A Palm Coast man is thrown in jail after deputies suspect he scammed people out of money by pretending to be an Internal Revenue Service agent.
59-year-old Michael G. Kolodin was arrested Friday morning and booked at the Flagler County Jail on a Volusia County Sheriff’s Office warrant.
VCSO spokesman Gary Davidson says it all started in August when a Deltona man suspected Kolodin was stealing money from him.
“The victim told deputies that someone claiming to be a collection agent for the IRS had called to say that he owed back taxes and would be arrested if he didn’t pay up,” Davidson added. “As it turned out, the victim did actually have an outstanding IRS debt.”
Investigators say Kolodin told the man to settle the debt by placing the money into pre-paid debit cards and giving them to him.
According to the arrest report, the victim gave Kolodin $1,330 and was about to give him $500 more before an employee at the victim’s bank grew suspicious and told the victim it might be a scam. That’s when Davidson says the victim called VCSO.
“Sheriff’s investigators tracked the victim’s payments to a company called Exceptional Process Management,” Davidson said. “The company’s website claims it’s a call center. But the address turned out to be a UPS box in Palm Coast rented by Kolodin. And so did the PayPal account used to process the payments.”
An investigation of the PayPal account showed it had received up to $300,000 in the past 8 months, including up to $12,000 in a single day, according to VCSO.
Kolodin is facing only 1 count of organized scheme to defraud because authorities have not been able to find any other victims.
“VCSO is working with the IRS to identify additional victims,” Davidson stated. “Anyone who has been a victim of this scam is asked to contact the Sheriff’s Office.”
Investigators also seized credit card processing equipment, financial documents, identification cards, bank records, computer equipment, modems, routers and storage devices connected to the operation during a search of Kolodin’s home, per the report.
Michael G. Kolodin (mugshot courtesy FCJ)
Copyright 2015 Southern Stone Communications.