A FATHER and son have been found guilty of scamming the IRS in a $20million scheme that involved cashing 14,000 lotto tickets.
Ali Jaafar, 63, and Yousef Jaafar, 29, of Watertown, Massachusetts, cashed winning lottery tickets on behalf of ticket holders to avoid taxes and receive tax refunds, federal prosecutors said.
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Mohamed Jaafar, another son of Ali’s, was also involved in the crime, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts.
He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service on November 4.
In 2019, Ali was the top individual lottery ticket casher for Massachusetts, and Mohamed and Yousef were the third and fourth cashers, respectively.
Officials grew suspicious of one family being such stable winners.
“That’s not luck, it’s fraud,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen Kearney said in closing arguments, according to MassLive.
“Three members of the same family, living in the same house, and won thousands of lottery tickets. No one is that lucky.”
The father-and-son duo were convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and one count each of filing a false tax…
