A Miami resident, Dan Rotta, has been sentenced to five years in prison for a scheme that defrauded the United States by hiding millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts. The court documents reveal that from 1985 to 2020, Rotta concealed over $20 million in assets across several Swiss banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse. He falsely claimed these assets belonged to foreign nationals.
Rotta used various methods to hide his accounts, including pretending not to be a U.S. citizen and leveraging his Brazilian citizenship. After UBS came under investigation in 2008, he moved his funds to other banks like Credit Suisse. In 2011, when the IRS obtained records of one of his accounts, Rotta altered documentation to make it appear that a co-conspirator owned the assets.
During an IRS audit, Rotta denied owning the foreign assets and presented fake promissory notes as evidence. Despite these efforts, the IRS assessed additional taxes against him. Rotta filed a false petition in U.S. Tax Court but later managed to have deficiencies reversed with fabricated loan repayments.
In 2019, anticipating further investigations by the IRS into Swiss account records, Rotta applied for voluntary disclosure but continued to provide false information about asset ownership and transactions.
Alongside his prison sentence, Judge Rodney Smith ordered three years of supervised release for Rotta. Restitution will be determined later.
The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Hayden O’Byrne for the Southern District of Florida and other officials from the Justice Department’s Tax Division and IRS Criminal Investigation.
The case was investigated by Special Agents from IRS-CI's International Tax & Financial Crimes group and prosecuted by Senior Litigation Counsel Christopher J. Clark and others from the Tax Division.
For more details or updates on this case, visit the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida or check related court documents online under case number 24-cr-20113.
