A Los Angeles County man was facing federal charges for allegedly running a tax refund scheme in which he sought more than $700 million in fraudulent refunds and caused a tax loss to the Internal Revenue Service of nearly $13 million, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday.

Melvin Louis Hughes is charged in L.A. federal court with mail fraud and various tax crimes related to the alleged scheme.

As alleged in the indictment unsealed last week, Hughes submitted fraudulent tax forms for himself and others, claiming more than $360 million in unearned refunds based on fictitious federal income tax withholdings.

In 2024 and 2025, as a further part of the scheme, Hughes allegedly filed false returns which claimed more than $370 million in refunds based on false tax withholdings, the

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