Ex-UBS client indicted for hiding accounts
A former UBS AG client, Amir Zavieh, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge that he defrauded the United States by hiding assets from the Internal Revenue Service.
A former UBS AG client, Amir Zavieh, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge that he defrauded the United States by hiding assets from the Internal Revenue Service.
Mr. Zavieh, a San Francisco resident, conspired with five others, according to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. They included former UBS bankers Renzo Gadola, who was sentenced last month to five years’ probation, and Martin Lack, who was indicted Aug. 2 and is considered a fugitive.
Mr. Zavieh opened an undeclared account with UBS in 1989 and transferred it in 2008 to a smaller Swiss cantonal bank after Mr. Gadola told him that his records could be given to the IRS, according to the indictment, which was filed Wednesday. UBS, the largest Swiss bank, handed over more than 4,700 secret accounts in 2009 to resolve U.S. criminal and civil cases.
“At some point, if they come after me, I will fight it tooth and nail,” Mr. Zavieh wrote in a June 2010 e-mail to Mr. Gadola that quoted in the indictment. “What is also interesting or perhaps appalling is that the laws of a country and perhaps its tradition is being broken to save a bank’s ass for selling out its own clients who have been trusting and feeding them for years!”
TAXPAYERS CHARGED
Mr. Zavieh, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Iran, is among more than three dozen taxpayers charged in a U.S. crackdown on offshore tax evasion.
Mr. Gadola and Mr. Lack are among 21 bankers, lawyers and advisers charged. Mr. Lack was executive director of the UBS North America International business until 2003, when he set up an asset management company in Zurich, prosecutors said.
UBS was charged in 2009 with helping Americans hide assets from the IRS. UBS avoided prosecution by admitting it fostered tax evasion, paying $780 million and handing over data on 250 secret accounts.
It later disclosed details of another 4,450 accounts.
In 2009, Mr. Zavieh met in Zurich with Mr. Gadola and a Swiss banker referred to as “S.L.” to transfer his UBS account to a cantonal bank, according to the indictment. Although the indictment doesn’t name the bank, it is Basler Kantonalbank, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Mr. Gadola, who pleaded guilty in December 2010 and cooperated in the investigation, told prosecutors that the cantonal bank paid “one-time commissions” to Mr. Lack and him for bringing in new assets, according to a criminal complaint filed Nov. 10. For each customer, the bank paid Mr. Gadola and Mr. Lack a “percentage of the commissions the bank earned on accounts, a percentage of custody fees the bank earned and a percentage of foreign-exchange transactions,” according to the complaint.
Mr. Gadola was arrested Nov. 7, 2010, after U.S. authorities secretly recorded him in a Miami hotel talking to a client about ways to hide money from the IRS. Within days, he helped record phone calls with U.S. customers who held secret Swiss bank accounts, according to prosecutors.
“As far as the IRS, I told you I don’t give a damn if they come after me,” Mr. Zavieh was quoted in the indictment as saying. “I have no liability.”
A U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco set bail for Mr. Zavieh at $100,000. Mr. Zavieh faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
Mr. Zavieh’s UBS account had year-end balances of at least $900,000 from 1999 to 2008, according to the complaint. Over that period, he earned at least $30,000 annually in undeclared interest income, according to the complaint.
Mr. Zavieh failed to file tax returns from 1998 to 2006, and for 2008, the complaint said.
Mr. Zavieh’s attorney, Robert Bockelman, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
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