#BTC #ScamRiskWarning #USDT
Crypto Trader Sentenced to Prison in the US for Tax Evasion
On December 12, the Western District of Texas sentenced local resident Frank Ahlgren III to two years in prison for falsely reporting income from the sale of Bitcoin.
“Frank Ahlgren III made millions buying and selling Bitcoin. But instead of paying the taxes he knew he should have, he lied to his accountant about the size of a significant portion of his profits and attempted to hide the rest,” the US Department of Justice noted.
According to law enforcement, the man had been buying Bitcoin since 2011. In 2015, he purchased about 1,366 BTC on Coinbase for less than $495.56. In October 2017, Ahlgren sold 640 BTC for $3.7 million and used the proceeds to buy a house in Utah.
When preparing his 2017 tax return, he significantly inflated the price he paid for his bitcoin. According to the Justice Department, it was higher than the market high before he bought the house.
In 2018 and 2019, Ahlgren failed to report $650,000 in bitcoin sales. Instead, he tried to hide the transactions by moving the coins through different wallets and crypto mixers.
In total, Ahlgren failed to pay about $1 million in taxes. According to the court, he will have to repay the amount to the government.
“Ahlgren will serve time because he believed his cryptocurrency transactions were untraceable. This case shows that no one is above the law,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Lucy Tan of the IRS Investigative Division.
She added that this is the first criminal tax evasion case “focused solely on cryptocurrency.”
