Former Hacienda official and a businesswoman plead guilty to $665,693 in tax fraud

On July 21, 2026, Ey Boricua publishes, with an EFE dispatch, that a former Department of the Treasury official and a businesswoman pleaded guilty to intentionally taking part in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud that caused $665,693 in tax losses. The defendants, who admitted guilt Monday, are Harry E. Mueriel Falero and Gabrielle López Berríos, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office statement in San Juan released Tuesday.

They were charged October 23, 2025 and arrested six days later. Harry E. Mueriel Falero admitted having conspired to submit false information on returns of several people and entities, erase or reduce debts, or claim illegal refunds. From June 2023 through December 2024 he worked at Hacienda, with privileged access to SURI: he could create credits and modify information on income tax, employee withholding, and sales tax. As part of the conspiracy, he asked for and accepted cash payments and other benefits in exchange for that false information.

One of the people with whom he conspired was Gabrielle López Berríos. In April 2024, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, she negotiated and paid cash to Harry E. Mueriel Falero, through another person, for false data on her personal returns, with an approximate loss above $11,192. She also took part in a bribery conspiracy for tax relief of her companies, G Fitness & Body Performance LLC and Veevo LLC, and paid bribes to another Hacienda official in exchange for false information in SURI for corporate debts. The inquiry places those payments, in part, between November 2021 and April 2023.

This case is not mixed with the Hacienda employee that NotiCel covered on July 2, who pleaded guilty to bribes and a $5 million loss. They are two dates, two amounts, and two federal pieces. It is also not used to verify the $57.4 million senior-credit disbursement that the same department announced on July 17. A SURI fraud and a refundable credit are two threads.

Ey Boricua does not publish here a sentence in months or a count of altered returns beyond what the U.S. Attorney's Office put in the statement. The reader who wants that text has the URL at the foot. This is not original reporting.

Source: Ey Boricua. https://eyboricua.com/exfuncionario-de-hacienda-y-empresaria-se-declaran-culpables-por-fraude-contributivo-de-665693/