BOSTON, Mass. – Claudio Poles, 78, of Dorchester, the co-owner of a Mattapan plumbing and heating supply company, was sentenced to four months in prison for filing false tax returns in connection with a scheme to use millions of dollars of unreported business receipts to purchase gold and silver bars.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani handed down the sentence, which also includes one year of supervised release, a $200,000 fine, and $2,961,261 in restitution. Poles pleaded guilty to four counts of filing false tax returns in May 2024.
The scheme involved Poles deliberately withholding accurate gross business receipts from the company’s tax preparer, leading to the filing of false tax returns. He then used a portion of the unreported income to purchase over $10 million worth of gold and silver bars for himself. To further conceal his actions, Poles falsely labeled the purchases as being for legitimate business supplies in the memo section of checks.
The fraudulent activity spanned from 2019 to 2022, during which Poles also misrepresented losses on his individual tax returns and failed to report personal income derived from the gold and silver purchases.
The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mackenzie A. Queenin.
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Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Harry Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the IRS’s Criminal Investigations in Boston, made the announcement.
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