Investigators have begun poring over decades of city tax records, an indication that federal authorities are following the trail of the largest public corruption scandal in D.C.’s history even further back than previously acknowledged, The Examiner has learned.

Prosecutors have accused property tax office bureaucrats Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus of embezzling tens of millions of dollars through phony tax refunds since at least 2001. The Examiner has uncovered suspect payments dating to mid-1999, but a law enforcement source with intimate knowledge of the widening investigation said authorities still haven’t found the first check the pair allegedly wrote and are trying to search records going back decades.

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