Illegal Alien Gets 8 Years in Prison for $89 Million Payroll Scheme Employing Illegal Alien Construction Workers

breitbart ^ | 25 Jun 2026 | John Binder

[dennisw]

$89 million fraudulent payroll scheme that saw illegal alien construction workers and their employers evade taxes.

“Today, we held an illegal alien from Honduras accountable for a brazen scheme that stole more than $38 million from American taxpayers to facilitate the employment of illegal aliens,” Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald said.

“This case exposes how unchecked illegal immigration fuels widespread payroll tax fraud and underground economies that harm American workers and taxpayers,” McDonald said. “This sentence sends a strong message: Those who exploit our open borders, cheat the U.S. Treasury, and violate federal laws will face justice.”

Department of Justice (DOJ) officials detailed how the illegal alien helped operate the payroll scheme through several maneuvers to ensure that illegal construction workers were kept off the books:

According to court documents and statements made in court, from 2015 to 2022, Mario Flores, of Honduras, an illegal alien, conspired with others to create a series of shell companies to run an unlicensed check cashing and cash courier service business. These shell companies cashed approximately $89 million in checks from subcontractors in the construction industry, charging them a percentage of the dollar amount of the checks they cashed as a fee for this service.

Through this scheme, construction contractors and subcontractors paid their workers in cash without withholding and paying required payroll taxes, allowing them to operate without regard to the workers’ legal authority to work in the United States. Flores also caused the filing of false tax documents with the IRS to conceal the scheme.

In addition, Flores and his conspirators defrauded workers’ compensation insurance companies by leasing their certificates of insurance to contractors and by providing false and fraudulent information to the insurers about, among other things, the number of workers covered by the insurance and the amount workers were paid.

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TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs
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[WashingtonSource]

These prosecutions are long overdue.

[dennisw]

Mario Flores, of Honduras, an illegal alien.....Dude set up his own check cashing businesses. Illegal aliens construction workers would cash their paychecks there. That were like personal checks, like cash with zero nothing, no earnings withheld.

IOW a Mexican roofing crew has a Mexican boss. All his illegal alien workers get paid via a business check. Same as paying your dentist with your personal check.

[BB62]

8 years??? Heck, I’d do eight years for $38 million! /s

[BB62]

8 years??? Heck, I’d do eight years for $89 million! /s

(correction)

[dennisw]

This is how construction crews nationwide are paid. Via a straight business check w nothing deducted for taxes.

[KitJ]

Yeah. Probably over $100M.

Oh my. It must be so difficult to live on only seven million dollars a year. Taxpayer money. Free money. /s

(I think, if we cut the fraud, every citizen in the country would get paid a few hundred bucks a month)

[AZJeep]

It does not look like he got all that 89 millions.
The US taxpayers got shafted for 89 millions, but the profits were likely distributed among all participating illegal workers and contractors.
Correct me if I am wrong?!

[TheThirdRuffian]

$11.5 million a year. Presumably he’ll get 50% time.

So $23 mil/year.

I’d sit in a box for that pay.