{"id":1104,"date":"2014-09-26T09:43:17","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T14:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patellawoffices.com\/blog\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2014-09-26T09:43:17","modified_gmt":"2014-09-26T14:43:17","slug":"first-indictment-for-fatca-violation-announced-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/planning-for-tax-minimization\/first-indictment-for-fatca-violation-announced-2\/","title":{"rendered":"First Indictment for FATCA Violation Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Federal prosecutors charged six men Tuesday with running a complicated offshore scheme that allegedly enabled clients to manipulate stocks, avoid U.S. taxes and launder hundreds of millions of dollars. \u00a0An indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn alleged the men laundered some $500 million in proceeds from fraudulent securities transactions for more than 100 U.S. citizens and helped commit tax fraud.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI issued a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/newyork\/press-releases\/2014\/six-corporate-executives-and-six-corporate-entities-indicted-for-orchestrating-a-500-million-offshore-asset-protection-securities-fraud-and-money-laundering-scheme\">statement <\/a>announcing the indictment. \u00a0U.S. authorities claim, between January 2009 and September 2014, the men masqueraded\u00a0as financial professionals and developed three interrelated schemes on behalf of themselves and their clients. Authorities claim they:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Defrauded\u00a0legitimate investors in several U.S. stocks by manipulating prices.<\/li>\n<li>Helped\u00a0their own corrupt clients\u00a0to evade paying U.S.\u00a0taxes on those bogus profits.<\/li>\n<li>Laundered\u00a0approximately $500\u00a0million US in criminal proceeds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cThe investigation of offshore tax evasion and money laundering are top priorities for IRS-Criminal Investigation, and we are committed to using all of our enforcement tools to stop this abuse. The enactment of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is yet another example of how it is becoming more and more risky for U.S. taxpayers to hide their money globally. Moreover, this partnership of IRS-CI, the FBI, HSI, and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office demonstrates the government\u2019s resolve to combat international crime,\u201d stated IRS Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Shantelle P. Kitchen.<\/p>\n<p>The indictment is the first time a FATCA violation has been charged as an \u201covert act\u201d in furtherance of a tax conspiracy and securities fraud and strikes a cautionary note for financial institutions and financial service providers that may be used as instrumentalities of crime.\u00a0 The indictment alleges that the defendants, operating in Belize and Panama, engaged in a conspiracy to: (1) defraud investors in US publicly traded companies by manipulating the price of microcap or \u201cpenny\u201d stocks, (2) help their clients avoid US taxation, including by completing false Forms W-8BEN, and (3) launder the proceeds of the fraudulent securities transactions.<\/p>\n<p>The scheme in the Bandfield indictment follows the same path of prior offshore financial frauds, but the prosecutors\u2019 focus on the defendants\u2019 alleged attempt to avoid FATCA compliance, coming only two months after the complex statute\u2019s implementation and a full six months before the initial FATCA reporting deadline, sends a strong message of aggressive FATCA global enforcement. Over 100 countries have now signed or consented to sign FATCA compliance agreements and thousands of foreign banks have registered under FATCA. \u00a0FATCA violations may now be used as indicia of fraud. The indictment confirms the coordinated and aggressive tactics US law enforcement is now employing to investigate and prosecute offshore financial fraud.\u00a0 This may the first time in history that a FATCA violation is be used to prosecute an individual.\u00a0 More are expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal prosecutors charged six men Tuesday with running a complicated offshore scheme that allegedly enabled clients to manipulate stocks, avoid U.S. taxes and launder hundreds of millions of dollars. \u00a0An indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn alleged the men laundered some $500 million in proceeds from fraudulent securities transactions for more than 100 U.S. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[90,23,56],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-planning-for-tax-minimization","tag-fatca","tag-fbar","tag-tax-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patellawoffices.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}