Two Dominican Republican brothers residing in Anchorage were sentenced in Anchorage U.S. District Court for their part in a large Drug Trafficking and Tax Fraud Conspiracy it was announced by U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler on Monday.

According to the Justice Department release, the two men, brothers, Joel Santana-Pierna and Abel Santana-Pierna, distributed cocaine in the Anchorage area from January 2010 until March of 2012. Joel, the leader of the conspiracy, arranged to import and distribute two kilograms of cocaine in Alaska.

In addition to their drug activities, the two brothers, along with other conspirators, also set up a tax fraud conspiracy that obtained over 3,000 identities from mostly Puerto Rico citizens. With these identities, Joel, his brother, and their co-conspirators, created and submitted false returns to the IRS in order to obtain large income tax refunds from the government. The government estimates that the two men and their co-conspirators intended to defraud the U.S. government of over $25 million through these false claims.

As a result of their pleas to the charges, Joel Santana-Pierna was sentenced to 135 months in prison, and his brother Abel Santana-Pierna, was sentenced to 72 months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess. In addition to their prison sentences, the two men were also ordered to pay restitution to the Internal Revenue Service in the amount of $559,755. Both men also agree to forfeit $130,000 that they had as a result of drug trafficking activities.

“The sheer greed of these drug traffickers is clear; they wreaked havoc on the innocent to bolster their personal wealth,” said Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge Matthew G. Barnes. “This is an example of the multiple layers of criminal activity involved in a drug investigation. The extraordinary coordination between the law enforcement community has put these criminals where they belong.”

“The Santana-Piernas’ multi-layered identity theft and fraud scheme to divert taxpayer dollars from the U.S. Treasury to themselves victimized many innocent people, and today’s sentence is an appropriate outcome,” said Richard Weber, Chief of Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation. “Investigating tax return fraud through identity theft remains a top priority for criminal investigators of the Internal Revenue Service, and we will relentlessly pursue those who choose to defraud the government and disrupt the lives of innocent taxpayers.”

Four of the brother’s ten co-conspirators have already been sentenced for their part in the conspiracies, five others are awaiting sentencing, and one remains at large.