Controversial Bitcoin Cash backer Roger Ver was arrested in Spain during the weekend on charges of tax evasion and mail fraud, according to a press release published by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Ver, who is known as "Bitcoin Jesus," allegedly caused a loss to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of "at least $48 million."
"Beginning no later than in or about October 2012, and continuing through at least in or about December 2018, in Los Angeles County, within the Central District of California, and elsewhere, defendant Ver knowingly and with the intent to defraud, devised, participated in, and executed a scheme to defraud the United States Department of the Treasury as to material matters," the recently unsealed indictment says.
Ver was previously sentenced to 10 months in prison back in 2002 on charges of violating federal statutes by selling explosives on eBay. After serving his prison sentence, he then moved to Japan in 2006.
Alex DovbnyaAfter discovering Bitcoin in 2011, he became one of its most ardent promoters. He later turned into the main proponent of the controversial Bitcoin Cash fork that was launched in August 2017.
In 2014, Ver renounced his US citizenship, becoming a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis, a tiny nation that is located between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
Despite his expatriation, Ver was supposed to pay an exit tax on capital gains from worldwide assets, which include his cryptocurrency holdings. The early Bitcoin adopter provided false information to his law firm and appraiser regarding his US-based companies in order to pay a much smaller amount of taxes.
Ver did not inform his accountant that he had sold roughly $240 million worth of Bitcoin from his companies in 2017. The entrepreneur failed to pay any taxes related to the distribution of these coins.
Following his arrest in Spain, Ver is now expected to be extradited back to the US.
Arman Shirinyan
Yuri Molchan
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin