ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — An Orlando woman faces 50 criminal charges for what prosecutors say was a scheme to help contractors conceal undocumented workers and evade payroll taxes.
Orquidea Quezada was indicted on 49 charges of wire fraud and a single charge of operating an unlicensed money transmitter.
She was arrested Saturday in central Florida.
Prosecutors want to seize $870,000 that they say was Quezada’s illegal gains.
Prosecutors say Quezada set up a company that applied for worker’s compensation policies for less than seven employees on an annual payroll of $100,000. Quezada then “rented” the policies to subcontractors with hundreds of employees, many of them undocumented.
Authorities say the subcontractors wrote Quezada payroll checks for their workers’ wages. She would cash the checks and then pay the workers, allowing the subcontractors to avoid paying taxes.
