In the same week that President Obama issued his administrative amnesty sparing millions from deportation, the feds busted a criminal ring of illegal immigrants that used stolen identities to defraud the U.S. government out of $7.2 million in tax refunds.
The mastermind of this sophisticated operation is a resourceful delinquent in Frankford, Delaware who runs a landscaping and cleaning business called “Las Tres Mujeres” (the three women in Spanish). Her name is Linda Avila and she’s admitted in federal court that she filed more than 1,700 fraudulent tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) using stolen identities assigned to migrant workers—mostly from Mexico—living in the U.S. illegally.
Avila altered W-2 forms with white out to cover up the names, social security numbers and addresses then wrote in other names and addresses to create the fraudulent returns, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) announcement. Foreign dependents were often added to increase the refund amounts. The IRS then cut refund checks ranging from $4,000 to more than $7,000, according to the feds. Avila provided the illegal aliens fake identification documents so they could cash the IRS refund checks. The illegal alien migrant workers kept a small fee and gave most of the money to Avila.
When federal agents searched Avila’s home in Delaware they seized about 17 boxes of fraudulent tax records, according to the DOJ document outlining the case. Templates for fraudulent W-2 forms and identification documents were also found on her computer. The records included copies of approximately 1,754 tax returns filed between 2008 and 2014 for tax years 2004 through 2013. The total loss to the IRS based on the fraudulent returns is approximately $7.2 million, federal authorities estimate.
Back in July a federal grand jury in Norfolk Virginia indicted Avila on charges of conspiracy to make false claims, mail fraud and false claims against the United States. On November 17, the same week Obama issued a long-anticipated administrative amnesty, Avila finally pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy and mail fraud. She faces three decades in prison and remains free pending sentencing on February 17. The feds have not disclosed if her illegal immigrant partners in crime will be charged.
What we do know for sure is that a few days after Avila pleaded guilty for operating this scheme involving illegal aliens swindling the U.S. government—and American taxpayers—our commander-in-chief announced with great fanfare that he was sparing 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation. Their presence in the U.S. alone constitutes a violation of our laws, yet the president rewarded them with amnesty. Obama actually acknowledged this during his recent speech in Las Vegas where he celebrated the new order with his allies in the powerful open borders movement. “The truth is, undocumented workers broke our immigration laws,” Obama said. “They didn’t follow the rules in terms of how they were supposed to come.”
