3 Mexican Nationals Indicted as part of $74 Million Tax Fraud (US) Investigation…Georgia

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Three men have been indicted as part of a $74 million tax fraud scheme alleged to have been occurring since January 2019, federal authorities said.

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According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Mexican nationals Gustavo Rojano Salazar, Gabriel Rojano Salazar and Andres Huerta Rendon are believed to have submitted hundreds of fraudulent tax returns over the past seven years and received an estimated 16,000 refund checks worth millions.

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To commit the fraud, the accused are said to have obtained Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) from the IRS using identification documents from Mexico, Fox 5 Atlanta reported. Those ITINs were then used to file fake tax returns, with refund checks mailed to P.O. boxes controlled by them.

Afterwards, authorities said, the checks were cashed at a BP gas station in College Park, just southwest of Atlanta, that also operates as a check-cashing business.

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On Oct. 14, the IRS raided the gas station as well as a Senoia home where two of the men were arrested, according to Atlanta News First. The third was apprehended in Fayetteville. The three men were arraigned on charges including mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. For his part, the store owner told Atlanta News First that he was shocked at the IRS raid and didn’t know what the investigators were looking for.

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The investigations resulted in charges against 76 people whose alleged and proven crimes totaled more than $490 million in tax losses, the Justice Department said. In one case, four Texas residents were charged with running a fraudulent trust scheme, withholding more than $1.5 billion in income from federal taxes. The scheme led to $200 million in lost tax revenue, officials said. In another, a Texas man, Marquis Al Bey, pled guilty on Sept. 17 for his role in a tax refund scheme where he helped clients obtain more than $35 million in refunds via falsified tax returns. He confessed to charging clients for tax preparation services and at times requiring them to pay him a percentage of the large tax returns they were set to receive.

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