American held in Spanish island over $1.8 mn tax fraud

Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain), July 14 (IANS/EFE) An American national has been arrested in Tenerife island of Spain for embezzling 1.8 million dollars in illegal US tax return funds, police said Monday.

The unidentified man and several accomplices allegedly used the identities of deceased people in the US to receive illegal tax returns from the US government between January and July 2013 in Salt lake City (Utah), the sources said.

The arrest was made in coordination with the FBI liaison at the US embassy in Madrid and took place in Puerto de la Cruz, capital of Tenerife, one of the seven Spanish Canary islands off the western African coast.

A district court in the state of Utah June 18 issued an arrest warrant for the suspect and accused him of 19 fraud charges.

--IANS/EFE

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