Indictment Unsealed Against Six Individuals and Foreign Financial Service Firm for Tax Evasion Conspiracy

Defendants Allegedly Used ‘Singapore Solution’ to Enable U.S. Clients to Evade Taxes on Over $60 Million Hidden Offshore

An indictment was unsealed today in New York, New York, that charges  offshore financial service executives and a Swiss financial services company with conspiracy to defraud the IRS by helping three large-value U.S. taxpayer-clients conceal more than $60 million in income and assets held in undeclared, offshore bank accounts and to evade U.S. income taxes.

According to the indictment, from 2009 to 2014, Ivo Bechtiger, Bernhard Lampert, Peter Rüegg, Roderic Sage, Rolf Schnellmann, Daniel Wälchli and Zurich, Switzerland-based Allied Finance Trust AG allegedly defrauded the IRS by concealing income and assets of certain U.S. taxpayer clients with undeclared bank accounts located at Privatbank IHAG (IHAG), a Swiss private bank in Zurich, Switzerland, and elsewhere. In order to assist those clients, the defendants and others allegedly devised and used a scheme called the “Singapore Solution” to conceal the bank accounts of the U.S.-based clients, their assets, and their income from U.S. authorities.
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