Miami Tax Preparers and Client Get 90 Months for $5.4M Fraudulent Refund Scheme

Three Miami residents, Sean Anthony Lopez, 35, and co-defendants Claudia Zuloaga, 43, and Sharon Elizabeth Angulo, 49, were handed a combined 90 months in prison after being convicted of a massive tax refund fraud scheme that defrauded the U.S. Treasury out of over $5.4 million.

Sean Lopez was sentenced to serve 30 months for his role as a client who submitted false personal federal income tax returns, claiming $625,320 in fraudulent refunds. Lopez received the refund through an illicit tax preparation business operated by Zuloaga and Angulo. The court also ordered Lopez to pay restitution of $695,635 to the U.S. Treasury.

Zuloaga and Angulo, who operated the South Miami-Dade tax preparation business under the names Sterling Executive Associates Inc. and Sterling Executive, were each sentenced to serve 60 months in prison for assisting Lopez and numerous other clients with fraudulent tax returns. They also face restitution of $1,539,873.

The scheme began in September 2008, with Zuloaga and Angulo recruiting clients by falsely promising to eliminate their debts through large tax refunds obtained by fraudulent means. They claimed that the submission of false tax returns would allow clients to access substantial amounts of money from non-existent Treasury accounts. The IRS was fraudulently induced to issue refund checks totaling $2,305,081, a portion of which was paid to Lopez.

During their sentencing hearings, it was revealed that Zuloaga and Angulo created fictitious IRS Forms 1099-OID to substantiate the fraudulent tax refund claims. They used the fictitious ‘redemption theory’ to justify these claims, falsely informing clients that they were accessing money from non-existent ‘straw man’ accounts maintained by the U.S. Treasury.

U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Caroline D. Ciraolo commended the IRS-CI Miami Office for investigating the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter RULES led the prosecution.