Early bitcoin investor Roger Ver arrested, charged with alleged tax fraud

A freshly unsealed indictment revealed three charges against Roger Ver, an early investor in bitcoin.

Ver is charged with alleged mail fraud, tax evasion and filing false tax returns, according to a Tuesday statement from the U.S. Department of Justice. Ver was arrested this weekend in Spain, with possible extradition to the United States.

Ver allegedly concealed bitcoin ownership from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and caused the purported loss of $48 million, the release continues.

"The indictment further alleges that by June 2017, Ver’s two companies continued to own approximately 70,000 bitcoins. Around that time, Ver allegedly took possession of those bitcoins and in November 2017 sold tens of thousands of them on cryptocurrency exchanges for approximately $240 million in cash," according to the release.

"Even though Ver was not then a U.S. citizen, he was still legally required to report to the IRS and pay tax on certain distributions such as dividends from MemoryDealers and Agilestar, which were U.S. corporations. Ver allegedly concealed from his accountant that he had received and sold MemoryDealers’ and Agilestar’s bitcoins that year. As a result, Ver’s 2017 individual income tax return did not report any gain or pay any tax related to the distribution of MemoryDealers’ and Agilestar’s bitcoins to him."

Ver also allegedly used law services to prepare and file false tax returns that undervalued the two companies, hid their 73,000 BTC holdings and did not mention Ver's personal bitcoin ownership, according to the DOJ.

Ver had been a resident of Santa Clara, California, but renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014 after purportedly gaining citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis. He had been known online as "bitcoin Jesus" and was the former CEO of the digital wallet developer Bitcoin.com.