" Birkenfeld worked as a private banker in Geneva for UBS. While there, he helped a U.S. billionaire real estate developer evade $7.2 million in taxes by helping conceal $200 million of assets in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Birkenfeld routinely traveled to the U.S. to help other wealthy Americans conceal assets offshore, enabling them to evade taxes on income generated by money in their accounts. He admitted that he and others advised U.S. clients to put cash and valuables in Swiss safety deposit boxes, and buy jewels, artwork and other luxury items while overseas with Swiss account money. "
Previously posted: A defendant plead guilty in Florida to having failed to disclose his UBS account, reports the New York Times, June 26, 2009. "Mr. Rubinstein was the first American client of UBS’s offshore private banking services to be arrested, last April in Boca Raton, Fla., when he was charged with one criminal count of filing a false and fraudulent tax return that illegally did not disclose the existence of his UBS account. He later pleaded not guilty but reversed that plea on Thursday. UBS, the world’s largest private bank, admitted in February to conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service by helping scores of wealthy Americans hide nearly $20 billion overseas."
