Leominster man pleads guilty to theft of government funds, bank fraud and money laundering in connection with stolen $1,355,000 tax refund check

Date: Jan. 16, 2026

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

BOSTON – A Leominster man pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Boston to a scheme to steal $1,355,863 by depositing a forged tax refund check and then laundering the money using cashier’s checks payable to shell companies.

Jesse El-Ghoul pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government funds, one count of bank fraud and four counts of money laundering. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Denise J. Casper scheduled sentencing for April 16, 2026. El-Ghoul was arrested and charged by criminal complaint on June 6, 2025, and was subsequently indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2025.

El-Ghoul owned and operated Affordable Motor Group in Leominster, Mass. and owed back taxes for the business. On March 29, 2024, El-Ghoul deposited a tax refund check for $1,344,863, payable to Affordable Motor Group into his business bank account. The check had been issued by the U.S. Treasury to a Canadian company, based on its 2021 tax return, and the check had been forged and altered to be payable to El-Ghoul’s company.

In the days after depositing the check, El-Ghoul returned to the bank and bought cashier’s checks for $235,280, $223,591, $202,643 and $425,000 payable to shell companies and to a law firm in connection with a third-party real estate transaction in eastern Massachusetts.

The charge of theft of government funds provides for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charge of bank fraud provides for a sentence of up to 30 years in prison, five years of supervised release and a fine of up to $1 million. The charges of money laundering each provide for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $500,000 or twice the amount of money involved in the laundering transactions, whichever is greater. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the determination of a sentence in a criminal case.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Thomas Demeo, Special Agent in Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, Boston Field Office; Ted E. Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; Michael Carpenter, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, OIG; and Nicholas Bucciarelli, Acting Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Boston Division made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth Kosto, Chief of the Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.

IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.