Dorchester man sentenced to jail, ordered to repay $2.9M after tax fraud

The co-owner of a Mattapan plumbing and heating supply business was sentenced in Boston federal court Monday for falsifying his company's tax returns in connection with a scheme to use millions of dollars of unreported business receipts to buy gold and silver bars, federal officials stated.

Claudio Poles, 78, of Dorchester, the co-owner of Economy Plumbing and Heating Supply Company, was sentenced to four months in prison with one year of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to four counts of filing false tax returns in May, Acting US Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua S. Levy said in a statement. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $200,000 and $2.9 million in restitution.

Poles didn't accurately disclose his company's gross business receipts to its tax preparer, Levy stated. As a result, the tax preparer completed Poles' tax returns using false information he provided them.

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Poles used some of the unreported gross receipts to buy more than $10 million of gold and silver bars for himself from bullion dealers — businesses that buy and sell materials such as gold and silver, Levy added. To hide these purchases that he made from his company's bank accounts, he described them in the memo section of the checks as being for boilers, materials and other plumbing and heating supplies.

Between 2019 and 2022, Poles falsely reported losses and his individual tax returns and omitted personal income that he got from his business by buying gold and silver bars, Levy said.