Florida Woman jailed for hiding $90m in Foreign Accounts

A Florida woman has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for her role in a sweeping conspiracy to defraud the United States by concealing tens of millions of dollars in undeclared offshore accounts and filing false tax returns.

According to court documents, Gilda Rosenberg, a dual U.S. and Colombian citizen from Golden Beach, worked with two family members from 2010 to 2022 to hide more than $90 million in assets held in secret accounts across Andorra, Israel, Panama, and Switzerland.

Authorities say Rosenberg was well aware that the accounts, some in her name, had never been reported to the U.S. government, and that taxes had never been paid on the income generated from them, in violation of federal law.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the family had stashed assets offshore since the 1970s, but by the late 1990s, Rosenberg had become an active participant.

In the early 2000s, the assets were consolidated in Credit Suisse accounts in Switzerland and the UK. The family admitted to Credit Suisse employees that they were U.S. persons trying to hide assets from U.S. authorities. In 2013, the bank closed the accounts due to their U.S. status.

Rather than disclose the funds, the family simply shifted them. Assets were moved to accounts at Bank Leumi in Israel, Union Bancaire Privée and PKB Privat Bank SA in Switzerland, and a bank in Andorra.

Rosenberg was listed as the beneficial owner on some accounts and falsely claimed to be only a Colombian citizen in account documents.

Rosenberg and her relatives also failed to file legally required Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARs) and submitted false tax returns omitting income from the secret accounts.

Between 2010 and 2017, Rosenberg filed false returns that excluded earnings from her UBP account. Together, Rosenberg and her two co-conspirators failed to report more than $5.5 million in income over nine tax years, resulting in a tax loss of nearly $2 million.

In 2017, in a bid to stay ahead of authorities, Rosenberg and her family members pretended to gift the hidden assets to a relative who had renounced his U.S. citizenship. They then attempted to transfer the assets back into the U.S. under the guise of fake loans and business investments.

Rosenberg agreed to pay $1,927,342 in restitution and interest to the IRS, along with a $5.8 million civil penalty for her failure to file FBARs.

She had previously pleaded guilty in Texas to a separate conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a case involving false reporting to defraud the Army and Air Force Exchange Service.