Posted by DETROIT, MI – Scam rap has been a burgeoning sub-genre of Hip Hop in recent years, but it only works until someone gets caught. Two Detroit rappers, who performed together under the alias Deuces Wild, were busted by the Internal Revenue Service on a complex $5.5 million fraud scheme.
Sameerah “Creme” Marrel and Noelle “Nikki Brown” Brown were charged with aggravated identity theft, false claims and conspiracy, according to FOX2 Detroit.
They used loopholes, created businesses, filed 122 returns and opened at least 29 bank accounts to claim withholdings and refunds of more than $13.6 million from 2013 to 2018.
Marrel appeared before a federal court last week while Brown reportedly isn’t in custody yet. If convicted, the duo will face 10 years each behind bars.
“These returns were all identified as fraudulent because the returns claimed that the IRS had withheld large amounts of income tax from the trusts purportedly filing the returns and that those trusts were therefore entitled to large refunds of the excess income tax withheld,” the complaint, which was unsealed this week, reads.
An alleged best friend to Nikki Brown, who is listed as CH in the documents, tipped off federal agents in an interview where Brown told her that Marrel knew how to shrewdly apply for lucrative business loans and offered to help her if she was interested.
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Marrel allegedly put CH’s name into a pot where a winner would get the grant money. CH received a $51,000 check from the IRS and was instructed to get a cashier’s check of over $28,000 made payable to Marrel’s Clean Sleep Properties business.
The rap group known as Deuces Wild hasn’t released music together in years. According to their YouTube page, their last video dropped in 2012.