WASHINGTON – A 30-count indictment was unsealed today in U.S. District Court charging Douglas Edelman, 72, a former defense contractor, and Delphine Le Dain, 58, his wife, with a decades-long scheme to defraud the United States and evade taxes on more than $350 million in income Edelman made as a defense contractor during the United States’ post-9/11 military efforts in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Edelman was arrested today in Ibiza, Spain, based on the U.S. criminal charges. The United States will seek Edelman’s extradition to stand trial in the United States.
The indictment was announced by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia and Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart M. Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.
According to the indictment, between 2003 and 2020, Edelman allegedly was the 50% owner of Mina Corp. and Red Star Enterprises (Mina/Red Star), a defense contracting business that received more than $7 billion from contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide jet fuel to U.S. troops in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Working with Le Dain and several other co-conspirators, Edelman allegedly engaged in a years-long scheme to conceal his profits from Mina/Red Star, including by concealing his income in undisclosed foreign bank accounts, creating false documents, and making false statements that Le Dain, as a French citizen residing abroad, did not have U.S. tax obligations.
Le Dain allegedly signed some of the false documents, including those that purported to “gift” Edelman money for certain personal expenses.
The indictment further alleges that Edelman conveyed this false story of Le Dain’s ownership to various arms of the U.S. government, including to a Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives during a 2010 Congressional investigation, to the Department of Defense during contract negotiations, to the Internal Revenue Service in a 2015 application to the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, and to the Department of Justice in a 2018 presentation.
Until approximately 2015, Edelman allegedly did not file any U.S. individual tax returns and did not pay any tax on the tens of millions of dollars he was allegedly making each year from Mina/Red Star. In 2015, Edelman allegedly filed false returns for tax years 2007 to 2014 claiming that his business interests, income, and assets belonged to Le Dain. From 2015 to 2020, Edelman allegedly filed false tax returns claiming that his only income was as a consultant, and that he had no interests in any foreign businesses.
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Key Facts
- State: Washington DC
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes|Public Corruption|White Collar Crime
- Source: Official Source ↗
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