College Park gas station targeted in IRS raid

Three men are charged in a multi-million dollar fraud and money laundering scheme. This says federal investigators raided a gas station and convenience store in College Park. This morning, the IRS executed search warrants at that BP on West Fayetteville Road. NewsHour reporter Christopher King is live there with the latest. Christopher. Christine, federal investigators raided this BP. The U.S. attorney says it's also a check cashing business. He says the suspects filed fake tax returns, brought tax refund checks here, cashed them, and made off with millions. This was a brazen offense. The IRS and College Park Police scoured a business federal investigators say is linked to a major fraud scheme. Ripped off American taxpayers. They did so repeatedly over the course of several years into the tune of $74 million. A federal grand jury last week indicted Gustavo Rojano Salazar, Gabriel Rojano Salazar, and Andres Huerta Rendon on multiple charges. The defendants are charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy offenses. U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg says those men filed hundreds of fraudulent tax returns from January 2019 right up through the present. First, they would obtain identification documents from Mexico. They would use those identification documents to get tax filing numbers, ITINs, from the IRS. And they would then use those identification numbers to file fraudulent returns. Herzberg says the men received thousands of tax refund checks. There are approximately 16,000 treasury checks with refunds, usually in the four figures, thousands of dollars. On Wednesday, the IRS raided this BP gas station. Herzberg says it's also a check-cashing business. What these individuals would do is they would bring those treasury checks to the check-cashing business and receive enormous sums of cash, millions, tens of millions of dollars in cash coming from that gas station. They are taking money out of the hands of Americans for the benefit of Americans to line the pockets of greedy criminals. The U.S. Attorney's Office tells us the arrests are part of a larger national initiative involving tax fraud. The agencies, as the suspects, are Mexican citizens. Two of them face immigration charges. The men were arraigned earlier today. A man who works at that convenience store declined to speak with us. We are live in College Park. Christopher King, Fox 5 News. All right, Christopher, thanks so much.