Not Just 1, Not Just 2, But 7 More UBS Clients Charged With Fraud

The federal government today charged seven individuals with collectively hiding more than $100 million from the IRS by using sham companies to conceal their ownership of secret Swiss bank accounts held at UBS AG. 

Two of those seven defendants, Jules Robbins and Federico Hernandez, pleaded guilty to separate criminal informations filed today in Manhattan federal court and agreed to pay civil penalties of $20.8 million and $4.4 million, respectively. Charges also were unsealed today against five additional defendants:  Kenneth Heller, Sybil Nancy Upham, Richard Werdiger, Ernest Vogliano, and Shmuel Sternfeld.
 
The government alleged that: Four of the defendants – Upham, Heller, Vogliano, and Sternfeld – removed their assets from UBS shortly after the publication of media reports in May 2008 that the government's criminal investigation of UBS might result in the disclosure of their unreported accounts to the Justice Department. Specifically to avoid this result, these defendants moved tens of millions of dollar collectively from UBS to smaller, lower-profile Swiss and Liechtenstein banks, hand-picked because they, unlike UBS, did not have offices in the United States.
 
Moreover, according to the government, two of the defendants – Upham and Vogliano – repatriated funds from their UBS bank accounts to the United States by traveling or having a close family member travel from New York to UBS's offices in Zurich to pick up hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash or travelers checks and then return to the United States. 

The defendants are variously charged with conspiracy crimes, criminal tax offenses, and/or willful failure to file FBARs.

Other recent posts on related subjects are at http://www.financialfraudlaw.com/lawblog/ubs-client-pleads-guilty-failing-report-over-1-million-swiss-bank-accounts/925 and http://www.financialfraudlaw.com/lawblog/another-former-ubs-client-pleads-guilty-hiding-assets-secret-offshore-bank-accounts/930.