SEATTLE (AP) -At least seven current and former NFL players have been tangled up in a complicated tax scam, the Justice Department said Thursday. But the agency declined to release names or say whether they participated knowingly.
According to federal complaints filed against two tax preparers, the players were among dozens of people who sought to amend old tax returns and receive big refunds, which they would then “invest” in a sham gold-mining company. The mining company, Meredon Mining Co. of Colorado, would then give some money back to the investors.
The tax preparers – William H. Camp Jr., of Washington, D.C., and Eric J. Peterson of Channelview, Texas – promised their customers that the scheme was legal, the complaints said, and they claimed $34 million in fraudulent refunds. The IRS paid out $1 million before uncovering the scheme, and is now trying to get the money back.
Neither Camp nor Peterson appeared to have listed telephone numbers, and it was unclear whether they had obtained lawyers. The complaints – filed in U.S. district courts in Seattle, where several of the customers lived, and Houston – seek injunctions forbidding Camp and Peterson from continuing the alleged activity.
The investigation is ongoing; Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller declined to say whether criminal charges would be forthcoming.
Meredon Mining is controlled by Milo Brost, of Calgary, Alberta. The Alberta Securities Commission issued a lifetime ban against Brost last summer because of his long history of fraudulent trading practices.
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