ATLANTA — A federal jury has convicted a Norcross man in connection with a six-figure money laundering scheme involving stolen identities and fraudulent tax refunds.

Federal prosecutors said Festus Anyiam used stolen identities to obtain fraudulent tax refunds and then laundered the proceeds through financial institutions in metro Atlanta.

According to U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg, the scheme began with stolen identities belonging to taxpayers in Illinois and Missouri. Fraudulent tax refunds were loaded onto prepaid debit cards, which were then used to purchase money orders.

Prosecutors said Anyiam spent three weeks depositing the money orders at ATMs during the summer of 2015.

“With over $400,000 worth of these criminal proceeds in his bank account, he then used that to purchase a cashier’s check to pull it out of his account and then deposited that into another account at another bank,” Hertzberg said.

Authorities said Anyiam ultimately deposited a $406,000 cashier’s check into another account.

“Depositing the money orders into his own accounts was not particularly clever because it’s got his name all over it; but that’s part of why this is a brazen theft of government money,” Hertzberg said.

Hertzberg said investigators believe there may have been additional co-conspirators involved in the scheme who are not known to the government.

“This is probably a significant conspiracy that involves a number of people who aren’t necessarily known to the government, but the conduct is at this point more than a decade old,” Hertzberg said.

Anyiam remains free on bond pending sentencing in September.

“Even though this conduct is more than a decade old, my office will always pursue wrongdoers who steal from the tax system and attempt to conceal their wrongdoing,” Hertzberg said.

According to prosecutors, Anyiam faces up to 10 years in prison on each theft count and up to 20 years on the money laundering count.

WSB Radio’s Veronica Waters contributed to this story.