A Miami man has pleaded guilty to his involvement in a scheme to defraud the IRS that lasted from 1985 to 2020. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida provided details of the case. Dan Rotta admitted to hiding over $20 million in Swiss bank accounts to conceal assets and untaxed income, which funded an extravagant lifestyle, far beyond his reported earnings.
Rotta's fraud involved using fake structures and false citizenship claims to conceal his American identity and falsely claim Brazilian citizenship to bank officials. When Swiss banks came under scrutiny, he moved funds to avoid detection, and when the IRS investigated one of his accounts, he transferred ownership to a Brazilian associate while maintaining control.
When the IRS began auditing Rotta, he falsely claimed that foreign loans funded his spending and provided fraudulent documents to support this. He also used intermediaries to obscure the source of the funds, attempting to mislead the IRS and even reverse penalties by presenting false loan repayments.
To avoid further penalties, Rotta participated in the IRS's voluntary disclosure program, but he provided misleading information, claiming the Swiss accounts held other people's assets and that gifts were non-taxable. This claim was proven false, as the supposed donor had children who would inherit the wealth.
Rotta is scheduled for sentencing on June 4, where he faces up to five years in prison. The federal district court judge will decide his sentence based on U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Senior Litigation Counsel Christopher J. Clark and other attorneys from the Tax Division are handling the prosecution of his case.
