Three men living in the Atlanta metro area have been arrested on federal charges alleging they ran a years-long tax fraud scheme that stole more than $74 million from the U.S. Treasury — filing hundreds of fraudulent returns, collecting more than 16,000 Treasury refund checks at post office boxes they controlled, and cashing them for bundles of bulk cash at a check-cashing business, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced.

Source: Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation

The defendants are brothers Gustavo Rojano Salazar, 41, and Gabriel Rojano Salazar, 49, and Andres Huerta Rendon, 43 — all Mexican nationals living in metro Atlanta, according to federal authorities and reporting by FOX 5 Atlanta and Wealth of Geeks. A federal grand jury indicted all three on October 6, 2026, and they were arrested and arraigned on October 14, 2026, before Chief United States Magistrate Judge Justin S. Anand. All three were detained in the custody of the United States Marshals Service pending further proceedings.

How prosecutors say the scheme worked

According to U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg, the charges and other information presented in court allege the following pipeline. Between January 2019 and the present, the defendants allegedly obtained Mexican identification documents and used them to request Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) from the IRS. After an ITIN was issued, they allegedly prepared and filed fraudulent tax returns in the name of the ITIN holder, reporting false withholdings and other fabricated information — reporting based on the indictment describes fake Forms W-2 showing wages and withholdings that did not exist.

The refunds generated by those returns were mailed as U.S. Treasury checks to P.O. boxes controlled by the defendants. In total, the defendants and other co-conspirators allegedly received over 16,000 tax refund checks. Prosecutors allege the men then laundered the proceeds by cashing the checks at a check-cashing business in north Georgia, walking out with bundles of bulk cash. The Justice Department released photographs it said were linked to the scheme, including stacks of currency prosecutors said one defendant had photographed.

Source: FOX 5 Atlanta via Collector

The College Park gas station search

On Wednesday, October 14, IRS agents executed search warrants at a BP gas station and convenience store on West Fayetteville Road in College Park, just southwest of Atlanta, which also operated a check-cashing service, U.S. Attorney Hertzberg confirmed to FOX 5 Atlanta, which reported from the scene. Reporting by the Daily Hodl, citing the federal announcements, said agents also searched a home in Senoia, where two of the men were arrested, and that the third man was arrested in Fayetteville. A store employee declined to comment to FOX 5, and the gas station's owner told Atlanta News First he was shocked by the raid and did not know what investigators were looking for. Federal statements name the three defendants only — the station's owners and employees have not been named as defendants in the case.

The charges — and the immigration counts

The grand jury charged all three men with mail and wire fraud conspiracy, mail fraud, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. The two brothers, Gustavo and Gabriel Rojano Salazar, were additionally charged with making a false statement on an immigration form: during the scheme, prosecutors allege, each submitted immigration applications in which he falsely stated that he had never committed a crime. Huerta Rendon was not named in the immigration-related counts described by prosecutors.

"These aliens allegedly engaged in a years' long scheme to steal over $74 million from the American people by filing fraudulent tax returns," said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. "My office is committed to prosecuting and punishing those who steal or fabricate identities to plunder public coffers." Maisha Horton, acting special agent in charge of IRS Criminal Investigation's Atlanta Field Office, said the indictment "is the result of the tireless work of IRS Criminal Investigation special agents and our law enforcement partners, who uncovered an alleged scheme that exploited the tax system to fraudulently obtain more than $74 million in refunds," adding that investigators used extensive financial analysis to identify the alleged filers and laundering.

Rodney M. Hopkins, Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service's Atlanta Division, called the investigation "an excellent example of partnership" across federal agencies, and Ellen Johnson, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Georgia and Alabama, said those who exploit federal programs "undermine the public's trust and impose real costs on American taxpayers." The case is being investigated by IRS Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and ICE's Homeland Security Investigations, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly K. Connors of the Northern District of Georgia and Senior Litigation Counsel Michael C. Boteler of the Justice Department's National Fraud Enforcement Division.

Part of a first-ever national tax enforcement surge

The College Park case is one of the largest in what the Justice Department calls its first-ever National Tax Enforcement Surge, which has produced charges against 76 people tied to more than $490 million in alleged and proven tax losses. The department created its National Fraud Enforcement Division on April 7, 2026, saying it is focused on fraud against federal benefit and revenue programs; its work supports a whole-of-government task force to eliminate fraud chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance. For diaspora readers in Georgia and beyond who file taxes through ITINs lawfully — a route used by many immigrant workers who do not have Social Security numbers — the case is a sharp reminder of the other side of that system: an ITIN is a tax-processing number, not an immigration status, and prosecutors say stolen and borrowed identities fed into it can be turned into industrial-scale refund fraud.