The Department of Justice reports that Roger Ver, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and promoter of Bitcoin Cash, was detained in Spain on suspicion of mail fraud and tax evasion totaling close to US$50 million.
The indictment claims that after giving up his US citizenship in 2014, Ver neglected to declare capital gains from his sizable Bitcoin holdings.
Ver is currently being sought for extradition by the DOJ so that he can stand trial in the US.
According to Ver's lawsuit, in 2014, he and his businesses, MemoryDealers and Agilestar, possessed roughly 131,000 Bitcoins, of which the firms possessed 73,000.
Ver allegedly neglected to report these gains to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in November 2017, when he sold tens of thousands of Bitcoins for about US$240 million.
According to the indictment, he allegedly misled an appraiser and a law firm about the exact amount of Bitcoin he owned.
Ver is well-known for endorsing the Bitcoin offshoot, Bitcoin Cash.
As one of the first advocates of Bitcoin, he earned the moniker "Bitcoin Jesus."
May 2024, Cryptoniteuae