MIAMI (WSVN) - A Miami man was sentenced to five years in federal prison for conspiring to defraud the United States by concealing more than $20 million in income and assets in undisclosed Swiss bank accounts over several decades, officials said.
Dan Rotta, a dual U.S. and Brazilian citizen, hid the assets between 1985 and 2020 using dozens of secret accounts at five Swiss banks, including UBS, Credit Suisse, Bank Bonhôte, and Bank Julius Baer, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Federal prosecutors said Rotta used a variety of methods to conceal his wealth, including sham structures, a pseudonym and falsely claiming that he was not a U.S. citizen.
Despite earning tens of millions of dollars in income, he did not report the assets or earnings on his tax returns, resulting in significant tax losses to the IRS.
In 2008, following news of investigations into UBS for aiding tax evasion, Rotta moved his assets to other banks.
When the IRS began auditing him in 2011, he falsely claimed that the assets were loans or gifts from foreign nationals and presented fake documents and affidavits to support his story, investigators said.
Prosecutors said Rotta continued to control the accounts and use the funds to support his lavish lifestyle, routing money through nominee and attorney trust accounts to evade detection. He also filed a false petition in U.S. Tax Court, denying ownership of the foreign accounts and misleading the court with fabricated loan documents.
In 2017, after convincing the IRS that he had repaid the alleged loans, the agency reversed its tax assessments—only for investigators to later determine the repayments were fraudulent and the money remained under Rotta’s control.
Rotta attempted to avoid prosecution by applying for the IRS’s voluntary disclosure program in 2019, but again provided false statements, claiming the assets largely belonged to others and that the funds were non-taxable gifts.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith also sentenced Rotta to three years of supervised release following his prison term.
Copyright 2025 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.