Date: March 13, 2025
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
MIAMI — The General Manager of a company that produces and sells renewable fuel and fuel credits was sentenced today to serve 37 months in prison to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release for his role in a scheme that generated over $7 million in fraudulent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) renewable fuels credits and sought over $6 million in fraudulent tax credits connected to the purported production of biodiesel.
Royce Gillham worked at a biofuel company based in Fort Pierce, Florida, that claimed to turn various feedstocks into biodiesel. However, when reporting the number of gallons they produced to the IRS and EPA, Gillham and his employer vastly overstated their production volume in an effort to generate more credits. When auditors sought more information from the company, Gillham and his co-conspirators provided false information about their fuel production and customers.
Gillham previously pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud and to file false claims.
U.S. Attorney Hayden P. O’Byrne for the Southern District of Florida and Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) made the announcement.
IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) and EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Funk for the Southern District of Florida and Senior Trial Attorney Adam Cullman of ENRD’s Environmental Crimes Section prosecuted the case.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative 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 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.