A former branch manager at Webster Bank and Citizens Bank pleaded guilty yesterday to participating in a tax-preparation scheme that targeted one of Greater Boston’s immigrant communities.

Christian Zynga, 46, formerly of Everett, pleaded guilty in Boston federal court yesterday to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office. Zynga had been indicted in October 2020 along with co-defendant Boris Shadari, who has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

The scheme involved falsely inflating taxpayer’s federal income tax refunds and diverting some of those refunds to accounts controlled by Zynga and others.

Zynga was a branch manager at a Citizens Bank in Somerville until September 2016 and a vice president and banking center manager at one of Webster Bank’s Cambridge locations beginning in October 2016, according to court documents and Christian Zynga’s LinkedIn profile.

Prosecutors allege that from 2012 to 2018, Zynga and Shadari said that Shadari was a tax professional, particularly for the Congolese community of Greater Boston. They allegedly took their customers’ tax information to a legitimate tax professional, according to the U.S. attorney’s statement, and provided the tax professional with false information concerning dependents, dependent and childcare expenses, and business income and losses to inflate the customers’ federal income tax refunds.

Zynga and Shadari then allegedly had the tax refunds split between the customers’ bank accounts and accounts they and their co-conspirators controlled.

Beginning in 2017, Zynga and Shadari allegedly prepared customers’ tax returns themselves, still continuing to inflate refunds by adding false information to the returns and diverting some of the customers’ refunds to themselves or accounts they or their co-conspirators controlled. The scheme allegedly resulted in a tax loss of more than $500,000, according to the U.S. attorney’s statement.

Zynga opened bank accounts in others’ names to receive the fraudulent federal income tax refunds, the U.S. attorney’s office said, and, according to court documents, Zynga opened three accounts at Citizens Bank in the name of one of the victims during the time when he worked at the bank. Without that person’s knowledge, these accounts were used to accept other taxpayers’ refunds, according to court documents. Zynga spent 13 years at Citizens, according to the LinkedIn profile.

Zynga also provided Shadari with the names and Social Security numbers of children of an associate who was living abroad at the time so that they could be falsely listed as dependents on returns, according to the statement.

Zynga’s sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 17.