Former U.S. Taxpayer Pleads Guilty in Panama Papers Investigation

A former U.S. resident and taxpayer who was charged along with three others in connection with a decades-long criminal scheme perpetrated by Mossack Fonseca & Co. (Mossack Fonseca), a Panamanian-based global law firm, and its related entities, pleaded guilty today to wire and tax fraud, money laundering, false statements and other charges.

Harald Joachim von der Goltz, aka “H.J von der Goltz,” “Johan von der Goltz,” “Jochen von der Goltz,” “Tica,” and “Tika,” 82, a citizen of Germany and Guatemala who last resided in Needham, Massachusetts, and Key Biscayne, Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit tax evasion, one count of wire fraud, one count of money laundering conspiracy, four counts of willful failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Reports 114) and two counts of false statements.

“Over nearly two decades, von der Goltz conspired to keep his income hidden from U.S. tax authorities and law enforcement,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Today’s guilty plea demonstrates the Department’s steadfast commitment to prosecute taxpayers who use offshore structures to obscure their wealth and evade their tax obligations.”

“Harald Joachim von der Goltz went to extraordinary lengths to circumvent U.S. tax laws in order to maintain his wealth and hide it from the IRS,” said U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman of the Southern District of New York. “Using the specialized criminal services of global law firm Mossack Fonseca, von der Goltz set up shell companies and off-shore accounts to conceal millions of dollars. Now, after years of concealment from the United States, von der Goltz has admitted guilt in a U.S. court and awaits sentencing that could result in a term in a U.S. prison.”

According to the allegations contained in the indictments, other filings in this case and statements during court proceedings, including von der Goltz’s guilty plea hearing, since at least 2000 through 2017, von der Goltz conspired with others to conceal his assets and investments, and the income generated by those assets and investments, from the IRS through fraudulent, deceitful and dishonest means.

During all relevant times, von der Goltz was a U.S. resident and was subject to U.S. tax laws, which required him to report and pay income tax on worldwide income, including income and capital gains generated in domestic and foreign bank accounts. Nevertheless, von der Goltz evaded his tax reporting obligations by setting up a series of shell companies and bank accounts, and hiding his beneficial ownership of the shell companies and bank accounts from the IRS. These shell companies and bank accounts made investments totaling tens of millions of dollars. Von der Goltz was assisted in this scheme through the use of Mossack Fonseca, including Ramses Owens, a Panamanian lawyer who previously worked at the Mossack Fonseca law firm, and by Richard Gaffey, a partner at a U.S.-based accounting firm.

In furtherance of von der Goltz’s efforts to conceal his assets and income from the IRS, von der Goltz engaged the services of Mossack Fonseca, including Owens, to create a sham foundation and shell companies formed under the laws of Panama and the British Virgin Islands to conceal from the IRS and others the ownership by von der Goltz of accounts established at overseas banks, as well as the income generated in those accounts. von der Goltz, Gaffey and Owens also falsely claimed that von der Goltz’s elderly mother was the sole beneficial owner of the shell companies and bank accounts at issue because, at all relevant times, she was a Guatemalan citizen and resident, and — unlike von der Goltz — was not a U.S. taxpayer.

Von der Goltz is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman on February 24, 2020.

Gaffey is scheduled to proceed to trial on March 9, 2020, before Judge Berman.

Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski praised the outstanding investigative work of IRS-Criminal Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, and thanked the Justice Department’s Tax Division and the FBI for their significant assistance in the investigation. The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs provided significant assistance in securing the defendant’s extradition from the United Kingdom. Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski also thanked law enforcement partners in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany for their assistance in the case. The Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS), working in partnership with the Southern District of New York’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit and Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit are handling this case. MLARS Trial Attorneys Michael Parker and Parker Tobin along with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eun Young Choi and Thane Rehn are in charge of the prosecution.

Gosh, it's almost like he had it made until TRUMP was elected:

EXCERPT:

This is a prosecution of just one of the clients, a U.S. Citizen. He used a firm that helped numerous individuals avoid taxes in their home companies. From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossack_Fonseca The firm was founded by German lawyer Jürgen Mossack in 1977 and joined by Panamanian novelist/lawyer Ramón Fonseca in 1986.[7] It later added a third director, Swiss lawyer Christoph Zollinger.[8] It specialized in commercial law, trust services, investor advisory, and international business structures.[9] It also offered intellectual property protection and maritime law services.[1][10] An internal memorandum revealed in the 2016 Panama papers leak noted that 95% of the company's work consisted of "selling vehicles to avoid taxes".[11]

Mossack Fonseca & Co. (Spanish pronunciation: [mos.ˈsak̚k fõn.ˈse.ka]) was a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider.[1][3] It was, at one time, the world's fourth largest provider of offshore financial services. From its 1977 foundation until the April 2016 publication of the Panama Papers it remained mostly obscure, even though it sat at the heart of the global offshore industry, and acted for about 300,000 companies. More than half are registered in British tax havens – as well as in the UK.[4] The firm received worldwide media attention in April 2016, when the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published information about its clients' financial dealings in the Panama Papers articles, following the release of an enormous cache of its documents from between 1970 and 2015 leaked to the news media.[5]

On March 14, 2018, the law firm announced that it was shutting down, because of the economic and reputational damage inflicted by the disclosure of its role in global tax evasion by the Panama Papers.[6] ......

The firm had allegedly helped foreign citizens circumvent their local tax laws[8][23][24] and sometimes even international sanctions.[8][25] The firm's founder argued that it simply helps its clients achieve privacy, and that it now complies with "know your customer" regulations.[15]

"Panama Papers" leak Main article: Panama Papers

On 3 April 2016, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) announced that 11.5 million confidential documents from the firm had been leaked to them. These documents, dubbed the "Panama Papers", reveal how clients hid billions of dollars in tax havens.[33] Comprising documents dating from the 1970s to the present, the 2.6 terabytes of data was given to SZ in 2015 by an anonymous source. Because of the amount of data, SZ enlisted the help of the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).[34][35][36]

The firm says that this coverage has "misrepresented" their work.[37] In its full statement[38] the company asserts that it conducts due diligence on potential clients, "routinely denying services" to those who are "compromised", and "routinely resigns from client engagements" when ongoing due diligence and/or updates to sanctions lists reveal problems. In addition, however, the company has said that responsibility for potential legal violations may lie with failures or lapses by other institutions given that:

approximately 90% of our clientele is comprised of professional clients, such as international financial institutions as well as trust companies and prominent law and accounting firms, who act as intermediaries and are regulated in the jurisdiction of their business. These clients are obliged to perform due diligence on their clients in accordance with the KYC and AML [ Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering respectively ] regulations to which they are subject.

The company informed clients on 3 April 2016, that files had been obtained through a hack of the company's email server.[39] Forbes has suggested that the firm's information security was poor, running old versions of key tools,[40] and still other vulnerabilities have since been discovered.[41]

Shortly after the leak, Panamanian, Peruvian, and Salvadorian police raided the local offices of Mossack Fonseca.[42]

bitt

To be blunt, yes!

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article72215012.html

“Inside Panama Papers: Multiple Clinton connections”

By Anita Kumar, Marisa Taylor and Kevin G. Hall

McClatchy Washington Bureau

Except:

“Among them are Gabrielle Fialkoff, finance director for Hillary Clinton’s first campaign for the U.S. Senate; Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining magnate who has traveled the globe with Bill Clinton; a member of the Chagoury family, which pledged $1 billion in projects to the Clinton Global Initiative; and Chinese billionaire Ng Lap Seng, who was at the center of a Democratic fund-raising scandal when Bill Clinton was president. Also using the Panamanian law firm was the company founded by the late billionaire investor Marc Rich, an international fugitive when Bill Clinton pardoned him in the final hours of his presidency.

The ties are both recent and decades old, not surprising for the Democratic presidential front-runner and her husband, who have been in public life since the 1970s.....”