More than 16,000 Treasury refund checks were cashed at a single check-cashing business in north Georgia, which paid out bulk cash, according to a federal indictment. Prosecutors say the checks were part of a tax refund scheme worth more than $74 million. Three men living in the Atlanta area were arrested on October 14 and arraigned the same day.
They are Gustavo Rojano Salazar, 41, Gabriel Rojano Salazar, 49, and Andres Huerta Rendon, 43. A grand jury returned the indictment on October 6, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced it on October 14. The three are presumed innocent.
How the scheme allegedly ran
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office announcement, the scheme began in January 2019 and continues to the present. Prosecutors say the defendants and others obtained Mexican identification documents and used them to request Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, or ITINs, from the IRS. An ITIN is a nine-digit number the IRS issues to people who must file but cannot get a Social Security number. The defendants then allegedly filed hundreds of fraudulent returns in the names of the ITIN holders…