🚨 Crypto Crime Update; Roger Ver, early Bitcoin investor known as "Bitcoin Jesus" Indicted for Tax Evasion
According to a DOJ Press Release, Ver formerly managed MemoryDealers com & Agilestar com, both tech equipment vendors. By early 2014, he and his companies amassed 131,000 bitcoins, trading at approximately $871 each, resulting in an estimated value of around $114 million.
In 2014, Ver acquired citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis and renounced his U.S. citizenship, a move requiring him to declare capital gains and the fair market value of all global assets, including bitcoins, under U.S. law.
According to the DOJ, Ver allegedly avoided mandatory "exit tax" by supplying false information to a law firm and an appraiser, leading to severely undervalued tax returns that omitted personal bitcoin holdings.
In late 2017, Ver reportedly took control of approximately 70,000 bitcoins from his companies and sold them for about $240 million through cryptocurrency exchanges, yet failed to report these transactions on his tax returns.
The indictment estimates that Ver's actions resulted in a financial loss to the IRS of at least $48 million.