Missouri Sentences Man to 51 Months in Prison for Failing to Pay Employee Tax to Fuel Gambling

A Missouri man has been sentenced to 51 months in prison on October 5, 2026, after the person had been found guilty of avoiding paying employment taxes to the Internal Revenue Service on behalf of the companies he owned and operated. The news was confirmed by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas, with the responsible person identified as one Ephantus Mwangi, a 48-year-old Kenyan national. He ran True Payment Solutions, Inc., a Kansas-based business that sold credit-card processing services and card readers to merchants, as well as True POS Solutions, Inc., a separate entity that ran the same services. Between 2017 and 2018, Mwangi withheld an estimated $331,404.33 from the IRS. That was for True Payment Solutions, but between 2016 and 2019, he transferred more than $1.5 million from his corporate bank accounts to his personal accounts. All told, the US government has been shortchanged $1.5 million in missing tax contributions. Mwangi is said to have used his money to spend long gaming sessions at casinos, playing for up to 10 or 12 hours at a time. He also spent lavishly on buying various luxury vehicles, including a Cadillac Escalade, two Range Rovers, two Mercedes, and a Lexus. True Payment Solutions employed around 20 to 30 people at the time of the offenses; the Prosecutor’s Office started a detailed press release detailing the case. Mwangi was previously scheduled to be sentenced on April 27, 2026, but he failed to appear in court, effectively becoming a fugitive from justice before he was arrested at a traffic stop six weeks later. Mwangi even tried to lie to law enforcement that he was not, in fact, himself, providing a false ID in the process. US District Judge Daniel D. Crabtree has decided that Mwangi will serve 3 years of supervised release following his release and pay back to the government a total of $1,597,835.24 in restitution.