East Haven Resident 1 Of 4 Indicted In Federal Tax Refund Scheme

East Haven CT

16 July, 2021

1:58 PM

Description

EAST HAVEN, CT —An East Haven man has been arrested along with three other Ecuadoran nationals living in Connecticut after an indictment on federal charges stemming from their alleged participation in a tax refund fraud scheme, federal prosecutors said Friday. On July 6, a grand jury in Hartford returned a five-count indictment against Edwin F. Gutierrez, 43, of East Haven, Olga Aucapina, 51, of Woodbridge, Diego Aucapina Paredes, 33, of Woodbridge and Jairo Santiago Sarango Solano, 33, according to the Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. The indictment was unsealed after the defendants were arrested Friday morning. According to prosecutors, and as alleged in the indictment, from around May 2013 to April 2017, the four "conspired to file fraudulent federal tax returns, in the names of other foreign nationals with the IRS in order to illegally obtain tax refunds. The fraudulent tax returns stated that they lived in the U.S., earned wages from U.S. companies and had federal income tax withheld from wages. But, prosecutors said in a news release that the "claimants never worked for or earned income from those companies." And, U.S. Customs and Border Protection have no records of the claimants even being present in the U.S. during the tax years for which the returns were filed, the news release reads. Based on these false tax returns, the IRS issued tax refunds, which were then deposited into bank accounts that were controlled by some of the defendants, prosecutors said. It's alleged that the IRS received at least 34 false tax returns for the 2012 through 2016 tax years, resulting in illegally obtained tax refunds in excess of $103,000, the U.S. Attorney's statement reads, noting that the four "spent some of the proceeds for their personal use, and they wired some of the proceeds to relatives in Ecuador." Each of the four have been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit theft of public money, one count of conspiracy to defraud the government with respect to claims, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. And, in the case of Gutierrez and Olga Aucapina , they also face one count of theft of public money. If convicted each face up to decades in federal prison. The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Division, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, with the assistance of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Enforcement and Removal Operations and the East Haven, Hamden, New Haven, Woodbridge and Wilton police departments.