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A Charlotte woman has been accused in a tax scheme to defraud the government of more than $3.8 million.
In court documents filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, 40-year-old Candida Mayo Figueroa was named as a suspect.
Federal authorities said the U.S. Postal Service intercepted an “extraordinarily large number” of mailings from the U.S. Treasury Department that appeared to contain checks going to several apartments close to one another in Charlotte. The Postal Service alerted investigators because the names on the mail were people not known to receive mail at those addresses.
Authorities said much of the mail was sent to homes in the Arrowood Crossing apartment complex in southwest Charlotte, and that Figueroa had been seen pulling mail from multiple mailboxes there.
Investigators said they sent five addresses to the IRS, which linked 804 individual income tax returns to those addresses. There was no history of the taxpayers identified on the forms living at the homes listed, authorities said.
The fraudulent returns were filed between January and June, and the total amount of refunds claimed was $3,804,184, according to court documents.
On Wednesday, authorities searched the five homes associated with the scheme. At Figueroa’s home, they found notebooks containing names and Social Security numbers, U.S. Treasury checks and a box containing dozens of birth certificates of Mexican origin.
Figueroa is charged with conspiracy to defraud the government. She remained in Mecklenburg jail Saturday.
Authorities said Figueroa conspired with others, but they were not named in court documents.
Staff researcher Maria David contributed.
