Ex-Credit Suisse Client Pleads Guilty to Hiding Money From IRS

(Bloomberg) — A Brazilian-American businessman became the second former Credit Suisse Group AG client to plead guilty within the last week to hiding millions of dollars in assets from US tax authorities.

Dan Rotta, wearing a beige jumpsuit, entered his plea Monday in federal court in Miami. As part of his plea, the 78-year-old said that Credit Suisse bankers knew he was a US citizen, but helped him conceal assets from the Internal Revenue Service.

UBS Group AG now owns Credit Suisse, which pleaded guilty in 2014 to helping thousands of Americans evade taxes and paid a $2.6 billion fine. Prosecutors spent years investigating whether Credit Suisse violated that plea deal by failing to identify undeclared accounts to the IRS. 

“Rotta held Swiss bank accounts dating back to 1985,” prosecutor Sean Beaty said at the hearing. “The banks knew he was a US citizen, but permitted him to hide money from the US government and say he was Brazilian and lived in Brazil.”

UBS declined to comment on the case Monday, before Rotta entered his plea. On March 10, Gilda Rosenberg admitted that she and family members concealed $90 million from the Internal Revenue Service through undeclared accounts in Switzerland, Israel, Andorra and Panama. 

Rotta pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to defraud the US and faces five years in prison. He will be sentenced in June. A lawyer for Rotta didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment after the hearing.

The pleas of Rotta and Rosenberg came after the administration of former President Joe Biden tried to reach a settlement with UBS over whether Credit Suisse violated its plea deal. The talks stalled before President Donald Trump took office. 

Rotta was first charged in March 2024 with hiding more than $20 million from the IRS and using two dozen Swiss accounts in an elaborate scheme spanning 35 years. Rotta had accounts with multiple Swiss banks, including Credit Suisse and UBS.

Court filings say that at the suggestions of the two banks, Rotta hired Beda Singenberger, a Swiss financial adviser who was charged with hiding $184 million in assets from the IRS for 60 clients. Rotta also used several attorneys who helped him move money and prepare false statements, Beaty said.

Rotta was initially charged with conspiracy, tax evasion, filing a false tax return, making a false statement, and failing to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or FBARs. As part of his plea deal, the government dropped about 20 additional counts against him.

Rotta, a citizen of the US, Brazil, and Romania, relied on decades of deception, prosecutors said after he was charged. They said he lied to authorities, shifted money between himself and a cousin in Brazil and used his Brazilian passport to avoid disclosing his US citizenship to Swiss banks. 

The case is US v. Rotta, 24-cr-20113, US District Court, Southern District of Florida (Miami).

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