Former Owner Of Plastics Recycling Company Convicted Of Tax Evasion

A jury convicted a former resident of Palm Beach, Florida yesterday, after an eight day trial, of two counts of tax evasion, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu for the District of Columbia.

According to the evidence introduced at trial, Michael Sang Han owned and operated Envion, a company that he claimed held the patents on technology used to convert plastics into fuel oil.  Han fraudulently induced two individuals to invest in Envion, and then used the investors’ money to pay for his own personal expenses.  He evaded paying income taxes on that money by filing false personal tax returns, which significantly underreported his income.  In 2010 and 2011, Han directed investor money to be deposited into his personal bank account, spent it, and then lied to and gave incomplete information to his bookkeepers and tax preparers in order to hide the fact that he was using investors’ money to pay his personal expenses. 

Han used over $14 million in investor funds to finance his lavish personal lifestyle and spent investor funds on personal expenditures such as private jets, real estate, high-end renovations and interior decorations, and expensive cars such as BMWs, a Range Rover, and a Ferrari. Additionally, Han used millions of dollars of investor funds to replace money he had previously misappropriated from Envion.  Han’s evasion resulted in more than $4 million of tax due to the IRS.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg scheduled sentencing for August 1, 2018, at 10:00 am.  Han faces a statutory maximum sentence of 5 years in prison on each tax evasion count.  He also faces a period of supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman and U.S. Attorney Liu thanked special agents of IRS Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who conducted the investigation, and Tax Division Trial Attorney Sarah Ranney and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Derrick Williams and Denise Simmonds, who prosecuted the case, and Paralegal Specialist Brittany Phillips for her valuable assistance during the trial.