Three men have been charged with allegedly collecting about 16,000 IRS refund checks worth an estimated $74 million and cashing them at a gas station in Georgia.
Gustavo Rojano Salazar, Gabriel Rojano Salazar and Andres Huerta Rendon have been indicted on charges that include mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, reports Yahoo Finance.
Authorities say the alleged scheme has been running since January of 2019.
The IRS says the three Mexican nationals used identification documents from Mexico to get Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) from the agency.
Investigators allege the men then used those numbers to file hundreds of fake tax returns that reported false income and withholdings.
The refund checks were allegedly mailed to P.O. boxes the men controlled and then cashed at a BP gas station in College Park, just southwest of Atlanta, that also runs a check-cashing business.
On October 14th, the IRS raided the gas station and a home in Senoia, where two of the men were arrested.
The third man was arrested in Fayetteville.
Says Maisha Horton, acting special agent in charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation Atlanta Field Office,
“Through extensive financial analysis and investigative efforts, investigators identified individuals who allegedly filed fraudulent tax returns, laundered the illicit proceeds and abused government programs for personal gain.”
The gas station owner told Atlanta News First he was shocked by the raid and did not know what investigators were looking for.
The case is part of what the Justice Department calls its first-ever “National Tax Enforcement Surge,” which has led to charges against 76 people tied to more than $490 million in alleged and proven tax losses.
The IRS, the US Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations worked the case together.
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The post Feds Say Three Men Collected 16,000 IRS Refund Checks Worth $74,000,000 and Cashed Them at Georgia Gas Station appeared first on The Daily Hodl.