Officer Mark Lindback started his day off with a routine contraband check of a jail cell. He pulled up the inmate's mattress, and ducked his head under the bed. He didn't find any shanks or drugs, but he did find papers -- lots and lots of papers.

Lindback says he found tax forms, papers with instructions on how to fill out the forms along with various social security numbers and birth dates during that routine check four years ago.

He turned the papers over to his supervisor, not knowing at the time that he had stumbled upon a tax scam in which prison inmates allegedly were attempting to bilk the government out of more than $1 million.

Investigators say Monroe County jail inmates in Key West had been filing false tax return forms for jobs they never had as far back as 2004, and getting thousands of dollars a pop in refund checks.

The scam however is not a local gig. Investigators and federal officials say it has been going on for decades in state and federal prisons around the country

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