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Federal agents indicted popular yoga business owners for disguising a lucrative nationwide business as a front for a tax evasion scheme to funnel unreported cash to their pockets.
Co-founders of Yoga to the People – Gregory Gumucio, 61, Haven Soliman, 33, and Michael Anderson, 51 – were arrested and taken into custody by FBI agents in Washington state on Wednesday.
The business generated gross receipts of over $20 million, yet the owners avoided filing corporate tax returns with the IRS from 2013 to 2020, according to Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Permanently closed Yoga to the People location on the 3rd and 4th floors of a 6th Avenue building in New York, New York. (Google )
Yoga to the People marketed itself as affordable, offering free classes and welcoming donations from students. Instructors collected cash donations in an empty tissue box at the end of class.
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According to prosecutors, studio managers were forbidden to count the cash proceeds, and were forced to deliver them to Gumucio’s Manhattan apartment, where they would be counted in "stacking parties."
Permanently closed Yoga to the People in Brooklyn, New York. (Google )
"The defendants perpetrated their scheme in various ways, including paying employees in cash and off the books, refusing to provide employees with tax documentation, not maintaining books and records, paying personal expenses from business accounts, and using nominees to disguise their connection to various entities," Williams said.
"At least two of the defendants even submitted fabricated tax returns to third parties when seeking a loan or an apartment, despite not filing any tax returns with the IRS."
Yoga to the People accepted cash donations for their free classes. (iStock)
The complaint says Gumucio used the business account to fund his lavish lifestyle, including a personal credit card bill of nearly $160,000, $270,000 on flights, $76,000 on hotels, $41,000 on Denver Broncos season tickets, and $40,000 on fine dining.
Soliman, Gumucio’s wife, doled out nearly $50,000 in horse-related fees, including shows, lodging and horseback riding, according to court documents.
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Yoga to the People closed all 20 locations across Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New York and Washington in 2020.
The trio is facing up to 30 years in prison for one count of conspiracy to defraud the IRS and five counts of tax evasion.
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