If you’re hiding money in a secret offshore bank account it would be a good idea to tell the IRS about it now, before they find you. As indicted entrepreneur Robert T. Brockman just learned, the IRS will track you down.
“IRS Criminal Investigation aggressively pursues tax cheats domestically and abroad. No scheme is too complex or sophisticated for our investigators. Those hiding income or assets offshore are encouraged to come forward and voluntarily disclose their holdings.”
Indicted on two billion dollar scheme
Jim Lee, Chief of IRS Criminal Investigation, explains, as alleged in the indictment, “Mr. Brockman is responsible for carrying out an approximately two billion dollar tax evasion scheme.” A San Francisco based federal grand jury indicted the mogul on 39 counts including tax evasion, wire fraud, and money laundering along with some more interesting charges as well.
Brockman was indicted for a scheme which ran for decades and managed to hide around $2 billion in income from the IRS. As part of the deal, he was able to “defraud investors in the software company’s debt securities.”
The IRS stopped wasting time on the little guys. They’re going after “the costliest and most sophisticated tax crimes in the United States.”
Brockman has houses all over the country, residing in Texas and Colorado, but he has “a web of offshore entities based in Bermuda and Nevis to hide from the IRS income earned on his investments in private equity funds which were managed by a San Francisco-based investment firm.” Brockman was indicted for directing “untaxed capital gains income to secret bank accounts in Bermuda and Switzerland.”
encrypted communications and code words
To cover his tracks, “between 1999 and 2019, Brockman took measures such as backdating records and using encrypted communications and code words to communicate with a co-conspirator, among other alleged actions.”
It didn’t stop him from being indicted. He was no match for the IRS. They also know all about how “between 2008 and 2010, Brockman engaged in a fraudulent scheme to obtain approximately $67.8 million in the software company’s debt securities.”
The company CEO isn’t supposed to do that without disclosing everything. Until he was indicted, Brockman “used a third-party to circumvent those requirements, to acquire the debt securities, and to conceal from the sellers valuable economic information.”
They really don’t like the fact that “Brockman allegedly persuaded another individual to alter, destroy, and mutilate documents and computer evidence with the intent to impair the use of such evidence in a grand jury investigation.” Apparently, it didn’t work.
According to the IRS Brockman was indicted on conspiracy; seven counts of tax evasion; six counts of failing to file foreign bank account reports; 20 counts of wire fraud affecting a financial institution; two counts of concealment money laundering, and tax evasion money laundering; and one count each of international concealment money laundering; evidence tampering, and destruction of evidence.
