WASHINGTON, Fla. — A Florida man has been sentenced to 51 months in prison for a nationwide tax fraud scheme where over 200 people were involved.
The court documents state that Aaron Aqueron of Clermont, Florida would get his clients by telling them their mortgages and debts qualified them for tax refunds. He would then send the new client's information over to co-conspirators who would then prepare their tax documents to submit to the IRS.
The tampered tax returns would then say that banks were withholding large amounts of income tax money which would then result in clients getting a refund.
According to the report, the tax returns that were filed by Aqueron’s clients were more than $14.6 million in tax refunds which then forced the IRS to pay over $7.6 million.
Aqueron admitted that he and his partners received $10-15,000 from each client. According to the report, the IRS issued a refund of $193,347.97 to Aqueron in regards to his falsified tax documents.
Aqueron also admitted that he and his co-conspirators coached their new clients on ways to obstruct the IRS so that he could take the tax refunds that were issued to the clients.
He would convince his clients to transfer their money into a trust and say, “Make sure you move money out of your name and out of the banking institutions and be smart.”
The main man in charge of this tax fraud operation, Iran Backstrom was sentenced to more than eight years in prison. The second man in command, Mehef Bey was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The judge ordered that Aqueron would serve three years of supervised pay and pay approximately $5.9 million to the IRS on top of his 51-month arrest.
