SEARCH FOR DRUGS YEILDS $500 MILLION TAX REFUND FRAUD IN TAMPA BAY FLORIDA

Even savvy street smart Detectives were surprised when serving the warrant in search of drugs at a Tampa Bay hotel room. 

Norman Rockwell, Tax Time, 1945

Instead of the usual things your favorite Clearwater Criminal Defense Lawyer might expect like mountains of cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin enveloped in clouds of smoke, the Detectives found fifteen people sitting around tables furiously filling out fake tax refund forms. 
Rather than tell the officers the complete truth after Miranda was read, "We're playing a new game called Tax Crosswords...," apparently the Taxters led the Detectives on a two year odyssey.

Tampa has long been the the epicenter of identity theft and tax refund fraud with Federal and Florida law enforcement doing their best to work as a team despite the stringent secrecy requirements for Federal tax information of citizens making investigations and prosecutions difficult. As reported in this excerpt by Bay News 9 three leaders of the alleged aggravated identity theft and tax fraud conspiracy may have taken as much as half a billion dollars, but even with that much money they never lost sight of their past acquaintances on Facebook nor forgot to apply for their food stamps and Medicaid:which in turn led to multiple grand jury indictments for which have been unsealed.

"She was known as the First Lady," Maj. Ken Morman said. "That's what she posted on Facebook."
Detectives said the three were the kingpins of a ring of people that stole at least a half-billion dollars by filing fake tax returns.
Neighbors said they suspect something wasn't right at the house.
"We suspected something wasn't right because of the cameras and nice cars," said neighbor Dora Hubley.
Twelve other people face charges as well, including one who police said had $23,000 in cash plus benefits cards for food stamps and Medicaid.
Police said it took two years to bring this tax fraud case to a close because of all the bureaucratic red tape. They announced Wednesday that they were forming an investigative alliance with the Internal Revenue Service and the Secret Service to speed these types of cases up in the future.

They better hope a judge doesn't sentence them to a lifetime of doing taxes, something most of us avoid. If your Conspiracy to Commit Tax Fraud has endangered not only your future freedom but your ability to maintain government subsidies, call Clearwater  Criminal Attorney but don't expect any refunds and please bring plenty of cash.