BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- Two Canadian men have been charged with depositing very large, illegitimate Internal Revenue Service refund checks at banks in Bellingham and Seattle.
Donald Mason, of Alberta, and John Chung, of British Columbia, were arrested last week.
They face charges of stealing public money.
Mason opened a Bank of America account in Bellingham, and deposited $360,000, while Chung opened one in Seattle and deposited $370,000, according to investigators.
The money came from fraudulent nonresident alien income tax returns for 2006, said officials with the IRS.
Bank officials got wise to the scheme and called the police when the pair tried to withdraw some of the money.
Mandeep Gill, 32, of Bellingham and Avtar Singh Sidhu, 36, of Fresno, California, allegedly had more than five pounds of crystal meth worth up to $200,000 when agents arrested them
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