Ex-Credit Suisse Client Indicted Over Hiding Money From IRS
(Bloomberg) — A Brazilian-American businessman was indicted in Florida for allegedly using Credit Suisse Group AG, UBS Group AG and other Swiss banks to hide more than $20 million in assets from US tax authorities over 35 years.
Dan Rotta, 77, was charged in Miami with hiding assets from the IRS in two dozen secret Swiss accounts between 1985 and 2020, the US Justice Department said in a statement. A Sao Paolo man, Sergio Cernea, was also charged in the case, the department said.
Rotta used accounts in the name of sham entities and a pseudonym to hide his assets from the Internal Revenue Service while earning income that he didn’t report on his tax returns, the US alleged. Rotta, who lives in Aventura, Florida, was arrested this month at Miami International Airport as he prepared to fly to Barcelona. He was later released on a $15 million bail package.
The case comes as the Justice Department weighs whether Credit Suisse — now owned by UBS — breached a 2014 plea agreement in which it paid $2.6 billion and admitted helping thousands of Americans evade taxes. UBS has said: “Credit Suisse AG has provided information to US authorities regarding potentially undeclared US assets held by clients at Credit Suisse AG since the May 2014 plea. Credit Suisse AG continues to cooperate with the authorities.”
An attorney for Rotta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In a court filing, his lawyer said Rotta intends to plead not guilty. An attorney for Cernea couldn’t be located.
Read More: Ex-Credit Suisse Customers Face Grand Jury Probes Over Taxes
Rotta was charged with conspiring to defraud the US, tax evasion, filing a false tax return, making a false statement, and failing to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or FBARs.
Between 2001 and 2017, Rotta falsely told banks that he was a Brazilian resident living in Brazil, the US said. During those years, he received millions of dollars in transfers from secret Swiss accounts, according to prosecutors. Rotta, a citizen of the US, Brazil and Romania, didn’t identify himself as an American taxpayer, the IRS alleges. The IRS raided his former house in Fisher Island, Florida, in 2021.
After public reports surfaced in 2008 that UBS was under investigation for helping US taxpayers evade taxes, Rotta closed his UBS account and moved assets to Credit Suisse and Banque Bonhote & Cie SA, the Justice Department said. When the IRS obtained records about one of his Swiss accounts, Rotta changed records to make it appear Cernea controlled the accounts at Credit Suisse and Bonhote, yet he continued to draw millions of dollars from them, the US said.
In 2019, Rotta tried to make a voluntary disclosure to the IRS to limit his exposure to criminal prosecution. He made several false statements, including that assets in his accounts mostly belonged to Cernea, according to the US.
Rotta was born in Bucharest, according to the voluntary disclosure filing. His family fled the communist takeover and moved to Israel when was five, before going to Brazil six years later. Rotta came to the US to attend college, moved to New York, and started a variety of family import/export businesses. He imported watches to the US through Switzerland, as well as pearls from China and Japan. He also ran an electrical supply distributing company before selling it in 2001 and retiring.
The case is US v. Rotta, 24-mj-02479, US District Court, Southern District of Florida (Miami).
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