@jansett You are asking for a $30,000 deposit to be sent overseas on the basis of your tax return? No wonder it is being held up. If you had filed with the IRS and used direct deposit from the IRS into a US based bank account, it would have been a lot faster. If you filed with the IRS and requested a paper check to be mailed overseas, I'm sure they would have held it for verification.
When you use refund transfer, the IRS doesn't know where the money is ultimately going, only that it's first stop is SBTPG in California. It's a good thing that SBTPG is investigating refunds like yours, either on their own or in cooperation with the IRS. (It might even be a new condition of their being allowed to continue to receive refunds. If the IRS saw a lot of fraud going through SBTPG, they could blacklist them.)
You asked for a huge untraceable overseas refund, which raises every red flag there is and looks exactly like refund fraud or money laundering. Even if you are a legitimate taxpayer, you bear some responsibility for that. Next time, open a US bank account to receive your refund and then do a traceable, legal reportable wire transfer into your overseas account.
