In conjunction with Roger Ver’s arrest on April 30, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced criminal charges against him.
Some of the accusations levied by the DOJ include tax evasion, filing false returns, and mail fraud. Forms were sent to three different IRS addresses in connection with the mail fraud accusations.
On the very same day, Spanish authorities detained Ver; the United States is requesting his extradition so that he may stand trial.
At the end of February 2014, Ver and his companies allegedly had 131,000 BTC, or $871 per person, according to the DOJ. Only two businesses, MemoryDealers and Agilestar, owned 73,000 Bitcoin.
Fraud involving taxes
After allegedly renouncing his US citizenship in 2014, Ver enlisted the help of a law firm to handle his US taxes and an appraiser to determine the worth of his two businesses, so he could begin to evade paying taxes.
As the law firm and appraiser “substantially undervalued” the companies and their 73,000 BTC holdings, the DOJ claims that Ver gave misleading or false information regarding the Bitcoin holdings.
The appraiser and legal firm also failed to disclose Ver’s own Bitcoin assets.
According to the DOJ, in 2017, Ver stole 70,000 Bitcoins (BTC) from the two companies and then sold them on exchanges for about $240 million.
On his individual tax return that year, he allegedly failed to disclose gains or pay taxes and hid the sales from his accountant.
The companies were US-based corporations, so Ver had to file tax reports and pay certain taxes even though he was not a US citizen during the sales.
According to the IRS, Ver was responsible for a loss of $48 million or more.