Meth bust in NC leads to 489 fake tax returns seeking millions in refunds, feds say
A drug deal with an undercover cop in eastern North Carolina led investigators to a 40-year-old woman who is accused of filing nearly 500 fake tax returns that net millions of dollars in refund checks from the Internal Revenue Service.
Antoinette Charmane Becton, who owned a tax preparation business in New Bern for at least five years, pleaded guilty to distributing meth and conspiring to defraud the IRS, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said Thursday in a news release.
A defense attorney representing Becton did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Thursday. Prosecutors said she faces up to 40 years in prison on the drug charges and a maximum of five years on the tax fraud charges.
Becton, who also goes by Charmane Cox, was arrested last year after prosecutors said she arranged a meet-up with her supplier and an undercover agent to buy a pound of meth. Investigators had reportedly used a confidential informant to make the arrangement.
The supplier and Becton met the informant and agent in a parking lot in Greenville in January 2020, according to the release. Once the sale was complete, the drugs were tested for meth and came back positive.
Becton and two others were charged in a nine-count indictment and taken into custody at the end of February, court filings show.
A federal judge placed Becton on home detention with radio frequency monitoring while the case was ongoing. According to the conditions of her release, she was also required to submit to random drug tests and searches.
Investigators subsequently discovered that Becton previously owned the business Carolina Tax Services in New Bern.
Starting in March 2014, prosecutors said Becton partnered with a third party to process refunds her clients received from the IRS, which allegedly enabled her to collect $500 for each refund that was processed. Becton would then direct her clients to cash the check and pay her a portion of it as a “preparation fee,” court documents say.
Over the next five years, Becton is accused of filing at least 489 returns in which she falsely reported the clients’ income and inflated the value of their refund.
Most of her clients earned less than $20,000 a year and worked on meat farms in eastern North Carolina, at grocery stores such as Walmart and Piggly Wiggly or at Little Caesars, court filings show. In total, Becton sought roughly $3.2 million in refunds using the fraudulent electronically filed tax returns, prosecutors said.
According to court documents, the last fake return was filed in January 2019 — about a year before she was caught allegedly facilitating drug deals.
One of Becton’s alleged co-conspirators in the drug distribution ring pleaded guilty in July, and Becton entered her own plea agreement on Wednesday, court filings show. A sentencing date has not been set.
