Florida woman hides more than $90 million from IRS, sentenced to 30 months in prison: Court records

GOLDEN BEACH, Fla. - A Florida woman has been sentenced to 30 months in prison after she and two family members allegedly conspired to hide more than $90 million that was held in undeclared bank accounts in several countries.

More than $90 million in undeclared bank accounts

What we know:

Gilda Rosenberg, 60, was sentenced last week to 30 months in prison for allegedly conspiring to defraud the United States by concealing tens of millions of dollars in undeclared foreign financial accounts, filing false tax returns and evading taxes.

According to court documents, between 2010 and 2022, Rosenberg conspired with two family members to conceal from the IRS more than $90 million in assets and income held in undeclared bank accounts in Andorra, Israel, Panama and Switzerland.

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Officials said Rosenberg’s family had maintained offshore accounts since the 1970s. By the late 1990s, Rosenberg — who was identified as an owner and an authorized signer on some of the accounts — allegedly knew that she and her family members had not disclosed their ownership of these foreign financial accounts to the U.S. government and that they had not paid any taxes on the income earned from the assets in those accounts as was required by law.

According to court documents, the family consolidated their assets in accounts with Credit Suisse in Switzerland and the United Kingdom starting in the early 2000s. Family members told Credit Suisse employees that they were U.S. persons and seeking to hide their assets from U.S. authorities. The assets remained at Credit Suisse until 2013, when Credit Suisse closed the accounts because the family members were U.S. persons.

After the bank closed the accounts, the family moved their assets to Israel, Geneva, Switzerland and Andorra. Rosenberg was documented as the beneficial owner of Geneva and Andorra accounts, and she allegedly signed false account opening documents that claimed she was a Colombian citizen and not a U.S. citizen.

Officials said Rosenberg, as well as her relatives, did not file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARS) disclosing their foreign financial accounts, as they were required to do. In addition, Rosenberg and her relatives allegedly continued to file false tax returns that omitted income generated by their offshore assets.

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Around 2017, investigators said Rosenberg and the family members divided the family’s assets and signed documents to make it appear that Rosenberg and a relative gifted the offshore assets to another relative after he had renounced his U.S. citizenship. Rosenberg and her relatives then allegedly tried to covertly transfer assets to Rosenberg in the U.S. and to conceal their ongoing and historical tax evasion. To do so, they allegedly created fake loan and investment documents to make it appear that transfers to and from Rosenberg were loans and business investments.

From 2010 through 2017, Rosenberg also allegedly filed false tax returns that did not report income she earned from assets in the account she concealed in Geneva. For the 2009 through 2017 tax years, court documents show unreported income belonging to Rosenberg and two of her co-conspirators totaled more than $5.5 million, causing a tax loss of $1,927,342. 

Prior to her sentencing, Rosenberg had agreed to pay $1,927,342 in restitution to the IRS. She had also agreed to pay interest on the restitution. Separately, Rosenberg’s plea agreement required her to agree to pay a penalty of $5,857,045.50 to the IRS to resolve her civil liability for failing to file an FBAR.

Rosenberg recently pleaded guilty in Texas to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a scheme to defraud the U.S. Army and Air Force Exchange Service.