Federal officials announced Tuesday that a recent York levy preparer known as “the Magician” pleaded guilty to filing tens of thousands of untrue levy returns, which officials declare has expense the government $145 million in lost levy payments.

In a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of recent York, Rafael Alvarez is said to have committed one of the largest ever levy frauds by a yield preparer. 

Prosecutors declare the scheme run by Alvarez consisted of untrue information that was designed to fraudulently reduce people’s levy burden.

“Rafael Alvarez became known as ‘the Magician’ by his customers for his supposed ability to make their levy burden disappear. But, as today’s guilty plea shows, there was no magic to what Alvarez was doing,” Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim said in the statement.

Officials declare Alvarez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and steal government funds as well as one count of aiding and assisting in the preparation of a untrue levy yield.

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These counts carry a maximum sentence of five and three years in prison, respectively.

A decade of ‘the Magician’

Prosecutors declare Alvarez owned and ran the Bronx-based corporation ATAX recent York, which they described as a “high-volume levy preparation corporation.” The corporation prepared about 90,000 federal turnover levy returns between 2010 and 2020.

untrue information provided to the government included bogus itemized levy deductions, made-up capital losses, phony business costs and fraudulent levy credits, according to prosecutors.

“Alvarez was so consistent at falsifying ATAX customer levy returns that he became known to ATAX’s customers as ‘the Magician.’” the release said. “Alvarez’s operation of ATAX helped the corporation generate approximately $12 million in fraudulent proceeds over the duration of the fraud.”

As part of his plea agreement, officials declare Alvarez has agreed to pay the IRS $145 million in restitution as well as forfeit more than $11 million in fraudulent proceeds.

His sentencing is scheduled for April of next year.

When reached by USA TODAY, Alvarez’s attorney Michael Bachrach had no comment on the matter.

Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending information reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and pursue him on X @fern_cerv_.