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Posted on Mar 22 2012
The Department of Finance said yesterday that the scheme recently uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation involving the cashing of fraudulent CNMI tax refund checks does not impact the current tax refunds and rebates that will soon be released.
FBI arrested on Monday one suspect in the refund checks scam, Mohammad Jahangir Miah, who is on home confinement for his conviction in a driver’s license scam at the Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
Finance Secretary Larrisa Larson said the checks in this case are from “several years ago” and “do not have anything to do with current tax refunds/rebates that will be released in the near future.”
“As the investigation is ongoing and initial arrests have been made, I cannot comment on the case at this time because I do not want to jeopardize the work that has been done by DPS and the FBI,” Larson said in an email interview yesterday.
Larson also said the Department of Finance was the one that requested assistance from DPS and FBI “and have been assisting in the investigation and provided all necessary documents required to assist in this investigation.”
“Upon receiving word that the investigation is completed and all guilty parties have been brought to justice, I will be able to comment further,” she added.
Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, in a separate interview, said the government will continue to release rebate and refund checks due to taxpayers.
“It’s a liability of the government. Guam had over $200 million and they ended up borrowing money to pay it so …That is still an option. It’s a matter of whether or not we have the credit ability to do the borrowing,” he said.
