The Tax Times: A High-Stakes Game of Hide-and-Seek: Florida Man Sentenced To 5 Year for Decades-Long Swiss Bank Scheme

Thursday, July 24, 2025

A High-Stakes Game of Hide-and-Seek: Florida Man Sentenced To 5 Year for Decades-Long Swiss Bank Scheme

On March 18, 2025 we posted How Not to Make a Voluntary Disclosure - Inaccurate Filing Leads to Federal Prosecution where we discussed that a federal grand jury in Miami returned an indictment charging Dan Rotta, of Aventura, Florida, and Sergio Cernea, of Sao Paolo, Brazil, with conspiring to defraud the United States by concealing income and assets in Swiss bank accounts. The indictment also charged.

According to the indictment, between 1985 and 2020, Rotta hid more than $20 million in assets in at least two dozen secret Swiss accounts at five different Swiss banks, including UBS, Credit Suisse, Bank Bonhôte and Bank Julius Baer. The accounts were allegedly held in his own name, in the names of sham structures and, in one instance, a pseudonym. Over the years, Rotta allegedly earned substantial income from these assets that he did not report on his tax returns.

Now according to Law360, U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith handed down a 5 year sentence to 78-year-old Dan Rotta, who pled guilty in March to one count of conspiracy to defraud the government for a decades long scheme using a Brazilian friend and a series of trusts and false tax returns.