Two indicted for tax fraud
By From staff reports
Published in News on February 21, 2016 1:45 AM
GREENVILLE - The United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina announced that a federal grand jury in Greenville returned an indictment charging Perfecto Ruano, 56, and Walda Luna, 45, both of Wallace, of conspiracy to commit mail fraud by filing fraudulent income tax returns with the United States Department of Treasury. Luna was also charged with three counts of filing false personal income tax returns, two counts of mail fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
According to the indictment, Luna falsely claimed two individuals as her dependents and failed to report all of her business income.
Thomas J. Holloman, IRS special agent in charge of the Charlotte field office, said "tax refund fraud is a serious crime, and while the conduct detailed in the Indictment is an allegation, it outlines a complex, criminal scheme to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and the hard working American taxpayers."
"Tax fraud is an outrage to hard-working Americans everywhere who fulfill their obligation to society by paying their fair share," said Special Agent Nick S. Annan.
According to the criminal complaint filed Jan. 5, Ruano and Luna used post office boxes and physical addresses controlled by them to obtain more than one million dollars in fraudulent refunds from the Internal Revenue Service.
On or about May 2014, the couple was stopped by the Arkansas State Police as they were driving west on Interstate 40. The police found $1,789.520 in cash in the vehicle. Most of the cash had been wrapped into nine large bundles and hidden in two safes and a cardboard box. The following day, the Duplin County Sheriff's Office observed, in the couple's Wallace residence, three empty cardboard boxes partially wrapped in packing tape consistent in shape and size to the bundles of currency seized from the vehicle in Arkansas.
The Duplin County deputies also seized documents from their residence consistent with use for tax preparation services, foreign identification ocuments issued by the Republic of Honduras and Guatemala to individuals other than Ruano and Luna, and over 300 ITIN letters issued by the IRS to individuals other than Ruano and Luna.
The maximum penalty the couple can receive for the conspiracy charge is 20 years' imprisonment.