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Florida Man Indicted for Decade-Long Tax Scheme
A federal grand jury in Miami returned an indictment today charging Dan Rotta, of Aventura, Florida, and Sergio Cernea, of Sao Paolo, Brazil, with conspiring to defraud the United States by concealing income and assets in Swiss bank accounts.
The indictment charged Rotta with tax evasion, filing a false tax return, making a false statement and failing to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts. Rotta was arrested on a related criminal complaint on March 8, 2024.
According to the indictment, between 1985 and 2020, Rotta hid more than $20 million in assets in at least two dozen secret Swiss accounts at five different Swiss banks, including UBS, Credit Suisse, Bank Bonhôte and Bank Julius Baer. The accounts were allegedly held in his own name, in the names of sham structures and, in one instance, a pseudonym.
Over the years, Rotta allegedly earned substantial income from these assets that he did not report on his tax returns. From 2001 through 2017, Rotta allegedly falsely represented to the banks that he was a Brazilian citizen residing in Brazil, even though he had been a naturalized citizen and resident of the U.S. since the 1970s.
During those years, Rotta and a company he controlled allegedly received millions of dollars in transfers from his secret Swiss accounts.
According to the indictment, in 2011, after the IRS obtained records related to one of Rotta’s Swiss accounts, Rotta allegedly nominally changed the documentation of his accounts at Credit Suisse and Bank Bonhôte to make it appear that Sergio Cernea, a Brazilian national, owned the assets in the accounts.
Despite the change, Rotta allegedly continued to control the assets and transferred millions of dollars out of those accounts for his use.
Key Facts
- State: Florida
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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