Once hailed as the messianic promoter of bitcoin, Roger Keith Ver, infamously dubbed 'Bitcoin Jesus', now faces federal charges of tax evasion and fraud. The Justice Department has recently announced that a grand jury in Los Angeles has indicted 45-year-old Ver, who previously resided in Tokyo, Japan. According to the department's press release, Ver was arrested this past weekend in Spain and is pending extradition to the U.S. to stand trial.
The charges against the early Bitcoin investor include three counts of mail fraud, two counts of tax evasion, and three counts of filing a false tax return. Ver allegedly began to seriously accumulate Bitcoin in 2011 for both his personal stash and his companies, without properly reporting or paying tax on these assets. The indictment, unsealed this Monday, stated that Ver and his companies owned roughly 131,000 bitcoins by early 2014, valued at about $871 each, amounting to a significant $48 million loss to the IRS.
After renouncing his U.S. citizenship in a process known as expatriation, Ver reportedly failed to correctly report capital gains and the fair market value of his wealth to the IRS, as mandated by law. The indictment suggests he provided misleading information to his law firm and an appraiser, which led to the submission of filed tax returns that severely undervalued his assets, leaving out Ver's personal Bitcoin holdings entirely.
His downfall further escalated when Ver decided to take direct control of the 70,000 bitcoins still held by his companies in June 2017, and proceeded to sell a significant portion of them in November for approximately $240 million in cash. Despite no longer being a U.S. citizen, he was required to but did not report these transactions to the IRS. This omission led to his 2017 individual income tax return not disclosing any gains or tax owed from the lucrative distribution of his companies' bitcoins.
If Ver is found guilty on all counts, the penalties are stark—a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for each mail fraud count, five years for each tax evasion count, and three years for each count of subscribing to a false tax return. The case is being spearheaded by IRS Criminal Investigation, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Details of the indictment and information regarding the ongoing prosecution were outlined by Public Information Officer Ciaran McEvoy. For further information on the case, readers are encouraged to view the full press release on the U.S. Attorney's Office website.
