IRS looking for fake missionary who stole over $30 million from donors
The Internal Revenue Service is searching for a man accused of wire fraud and laundering millions of dollars in donations from various organizations that thought they were giving funds to a Christian ministry in China.
Jason Gerald Shenk of Georgia, 45, who has been named a fugitive by the IRS, is accused of misdirecting more than $30 million worth of donations to various shell corporations, including the North Carolina-registered Shenkland LLC.
From April 2010 to July 2019, Shenk reportedly retrieved donations from various faith-based charities and donors, most of whom were Amish and Mennonite communities based in North Carolina and Ohio.
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According to the indictment, Shenk allegedly posed himself as a Christian missionary and solicited donations, promising that he would produce and distribute Christian literature and Bibles in areas throughout China.
In addition to individual donations, one organization and its donors gave $22 million, and another charity and its donors provided $10 million towards the alleged scheme.
The IRS said that instead of collecting the funds for his claimed mission, Shenk allegedly used the donation money for his own personal financial gains and various uses.
These alternative uses included paying about $1 million to a sports gambling site, buying equity shares of about $850,000 in a privately-held nuclear energy company and about $4 million in purchases of about 16 life insurance policies in different peoples' names.
Shenk also purchased about $1 million worth of diamonds, gold and precious metals. He also obtained foreign and domestic stock totaling over $188,000 and made $7 million of payments to the company running his family farm. He bought at least 10 personal credit cards totaling over $820,000 and bought $320,000 in real estate development in Santiago, Chile.
Shenk also allegedly used seven other shell companies with bank accounts in the United States, Singapore and China to fulfill his financial scheme.
The companies Shenk allegedly used to fulfill his scheme along with Shenkland LLC included Morning Star Ministries, Connect Connect Asia BV, CLF Asia Limited, Autumnvale Group Limited, BCB International LLC, Heartland Plantations LLC, and Global Paradigm LTD.
An unsealed federal indictment can potentially charge Shenk with four counts of wire fraud, three counts of international concealment money laundering, 13 counts of concealment money laundering, 21 counts of money laundering involving transactions greater than $10,000 and one count of failure to file a report of a foreign bank account.
Shenk could face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. He would also forfeit property tied to the alleged scheme and be responsible for financial penalties.
Nicole Alcindor is a reporter for The Christian Post.
