Two Ukrainian nationals have been sentenced for $25 million in fraud and money laundering.
Oleg Oliynyk and Oleksandr Yurchyk were the most recently sentenced individuals as part of a government crackdown on fraud named Operation RoomKey.
U.S. District Court Judge Jose E. Martinez ordered the men to serve three years each of supervised release and they will pay $10,863,233.05 in restitution to the United States. This is in addition to a forfeited sum of $11 million.
The sentencing has been a collaborative effort by the Tax Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).
Two individuals sentenced as part of Operation Roomkey
From 2008 to 2021, both men and their accomplices reportedly operated a series of labor-staffing companies in South Florida.
The premises included Paradise Choice LLC, Paradise Choice Cleaning LLC, Tropical City Services LLC, and Tropical City Group LLC. The co-defendants in the case are Oleksandr Morgunov, Mykhaylo Chugay, and Volodymyr Ogorodnychuk.
Chugay was sentenced in August 2022 to more than 24 years in prison, Morgunov and Ogorodnychuk each “pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 96 months in prison and 48 months in prison, respectively,” said the Justice Department.
According to court documents, the group “facilitated the employment of non-resident aliens in the hospitality industry who were not authorized to work in the United States and helped evade the assessment and collection of more than $25 million of federal income and employment taxes.”
Due recently reported a similar case of Floridian employment and staffing fraud when Matthew Brown, a Martin County man, operated multiple entities in the area as a reliable tax preparer and payroll administrator.
One of those companies, Elite Payroll, was responsible for the wages and proper returns needed for staff in and around St. Lucie, Martin, and Palm Beach Counties.
It is estimated that the final tax loss for the undeclared Medicare, Social Security, and federal income taxes at the hands of Brown sits at $22 million.
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