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UBS client pleads guilty in U.S. tax case
By Tom Brown
Tom Brown
, April 14, 2007
MIAMI (Reuters) – A wealthy
Florida yacht broker, caught up in a
federal probe of UBS AG (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N),
pleaded guilty on Tuesday to using the Swiss
bank to hide more than $3 million in assets from the U.S.
government.
The guilty plea by
Robert Moran, of Lighthouse Point,
Florida, was thought to be the first by a UBS client in a widening
tax-evasion investigation of the bank, a U.S.
Justice Department official said.
Moran, who runs a Florida-based
company called Moran Yacht and Ship that bills itself as one of the
world's leading yacht merchants, entered his plea in federal court in
Fort Lauderdale.
He faces a maximum of three years
in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is set for June 26.
Moran admitted filing a false 2007
U.S. tax return and accepted responsibility for concealing more than $3
million in assets in a secret account at UBS in
Switzerland, the
Justice Department said.
"According to court records, Moran
was the beneficial owner of a UBS account in the name of Winter Drive
Investments S.A., a nominee Panamanian corporation," the department said.
"From 2001 through 2008, Moran
communicated with bankers at UBS via email, telephone and in person about
the purchase and sale of securities, and the conversion of investments
from U.S. dollars to Euros," it added.
SLEEK, MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR YACHTS
The website of Fort
Lauderdale-based Moran Yacht and Ship, which lists Moran as its president,
gives the addresses of the company's business offices in Fort Lauderdale,
Moscow and
Antibes, France.
"We are recognized as being the
authority and most successful company in the world with regard to the sale
and construction of quality built motor yachts," the site says.
Displaying photographs of sleek,
multimillion-dollar motor yachts, it offers services to "clients wishing
to build, buy, sell or charter yachts, from 60 to 500 feet."
UBS, Switzerland's largest bank,
in February acknowledged that it helped U.S. clients conceal assets from
the U.S. government. It agreed to pay a $780 million fine and identify
some of its American clients.
U.S. authorities earlier this
month charged Florida-based accountant
Steven Michael Rubinstein in the first of what they said could be a series
of tax-evasion prosecutions of American UBS clients. A
Fort
Lauderdale judge
last week ordered Rubinstein released on a $12 million bond pending an
arraignment set for next Wednesday.
U.S. authorities have said there
will be other tax evasion prosecutions
against American clients of UBS as they wage a legal battle with the
Swiss bank to try to force it to give up
the names of tens of thousands of Americans suspected of cheating the U.S.
government by concealing accounts abroad.
"We will continue to prosecute
those who use offshore schemes to avoid paying their taxes," Alexander
Acosta, U.S. attorney for the Southern District
of Florida, said in a statement on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Randall Mikkelsen
and Tom Brown, Editing by Pascal Fletcher
and Eric Beech)
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