The Justice Department announced that two Florida men—Michael Mayorga and Francisco Alvarez—pleaded guilty to federal charges for their role in an off-the-books cash payroll system for construction workers to avoid paying employment taxes and to defraud workers’ compensation insurance companies. The defendants, who ran the scheme from 2015 to 2022, used a series of shell companies to run an unlicensed check cashing and cash courier service business that cashed approximately $89 million in checks from subcontractors in the construction industry. The subcontractors used the cash to pay their workers, and the defendants provided bookkeeping and tax preparation services for some of the shell companies.
