A U.S. taxpayer who conspired to hide her family’s assets and income from U.S. authorities with the help of a series of offshore private banks is now facing prison.
A Florida woman, Gilda Rosenberg, whose family began opening offshore accounts as far back as the 1970s, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for her role in allegedly concealing more than US$90 million in assets and income from U.S. tax authorities between 2010 and 2022 in a series of secret offshore bank accounts.
According to court filings, Rosenberg’s family, which had long used offshore accounts, consolidated their assets in accounts with Credit Suisse in Switzerland and the U.K. starting in the 2000s. The bank closed the accounts in 2013 after determining that they were seeking to evade U.S. tax authorities. The family then moved their assets to new accounts at private banks in Israel, Switzerland and Andorra.
In 2017, the family engaged in a scheme to hide the origin of their assets, using fake loan and investment documents, and tried to secretly transfer assets to Rosenberg in the U.S. “to conceal their ongoing and historical tax evasion,” U.S. authorities alleged.
After the scheme was exposed, Rosenberg pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Before sentencing, she agreed to pay US$1.9 million in restitution to the IRS, plus interest, and to pay a US$5.9-million penalty for tax reporting violations, the U.S. Department of Justice said.