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The idea that United States citizens can gain access to secret funds because of a government-created strawman is a persistent myth — and one was debunked long ago as a get-rich-quick scheme promulgated by shysters with links to far-right groups: The strawman, the theory states, is an entity created by an alleged 1933 House Joint Resolution marking U.S. residents as collateral for the country's loans. Though it is unclear how prevalent it is today, the FBI has classified the idea of birth certificate redemption as a common form of bond fraud: Filing these types of frivolous tax submissions can incur a $5,000 fine, though authorities give offenders 30 days to retract the documents. The Treasury Department's office of the Inspector General published an example of a sight draft while warning that they were being used in an attempt to pay for everything from cars to child support: The Treasury also provided us with an April 2009 guidance they sent to financial institutions advising them how to report loan modification scams, which included a description of a hidden account being used as a bogus payment: A spokesperson for the Treasury told us on 17 January 2017 that these types of scams have not been a recent issue of concern for the department's investigators. However, they are still reported to its financial crimes enforcement division. The Southern Poverty Law Center stated in a 2002 report that the redemption movement can be traced back to a South Dakota man, Roger Elvick, who has ties to the Aryan Nations and other white supremacist organizations: Elvick was indicted again in Ohio in 2003 and charged with corruption, extortion, and forgery, but his courtroom behavior derailed his trial: The inspector general's office for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, noted the use of UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) in a 2015 bulletin concerning right-wing sovereign citizen groups, pointing out members commonly use the term in fraudulent documents:
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