Florida Woman Pleads Guilty to Conspiring with Family to Hide from the IRS More than $90M In Offshore Bank Accounts

Note: View plea agreement here. View factual basis here.

MIAMI – A Florida woman, and dual U.S. and Colombian citizen, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud the United States by, among other things, concealing tens of millions of dollars in undeclared foreign financial accounts, filing false tax returns, and evading taxes.

According to court documents and statements made in court, between 2010 and 2022, Gilda Rosenberg, of Golden Beach, Florida, conspired with two family members to conceal from the IRS more than $90 million in assets and income held in undeclared bank accounts in Andorra, Israel, Panama and Switzerland.

Rosenberg’s family had maintained offshore accounts since the 1970s. By the late 1990s, Rosenberg — who was identified as an owner and an authorized signer on some of the accounts — knew that she and her family members had not disclosed their ownership of these foreign financial accounts to the U.S. government and that they had not paid any taxes on the income earned from the assets in those accounts as was required by law.

Starting in the early 2000s, the family consolidated their assets at accounts with Credit Suisse in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Family members told Credit Suisse employees that they were U.S. persons and seeking to hide their assets from U.S. authorities. The assets remained at Credit Suisse until 2013, when Credit Suisse closed the accounts because the family members were U.S. persons.

When Credit Suisse closed their accounts, the family moved their assets, which were typically titled in the names of nominee entities, to new accounts located at Bank Leumi in Israel, Union Bancaire Privée (UBP) and PKB Privat Bank SA in Switzerland, and an Andorran bank. Rosenberg was documented as the beneficial owner of accounts at UBP and the Andorran bank. She also signed false account opening documents that claimed she was a Colombian resident and not a U.S. citizen.

Rosenberg, as well as her relatives, did not file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARS) disclosing their foreign financial accounts, as they were required to do. In addition, Rosenberg and her relatives continued to file false tax returns that omitted income generated by their offshore assets.

In or about 2017, as part of a scheme to continue to evade their U.S. tax and reporting obligations, Rosenberg and the family members divided the family’s assets and signed documents to make it appear that Rosenberg and a relative gifted the offshore assets to another relative after he had renounced his U.S. citizenship. Rosenberg and her relatives then tried to covertly transfer assets to Rosenberg in the United States and to conceal their ongoing and historical tax evasion. To do so, Rosenberg and her relatives, among other things, created fake loan and investment documents to make it appear that transfers to and from Rosenberg were loans and business investments.

From 2010 through 2017, Rosenberg filed false tax returns that did not report more than $5.5 million in income she earned from her assets at UBP, which caused a tax loss to the IRS of $1,927,342.

Rosenberg is scheduled to be sentenced on May 30. She faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison as well as a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Rosenberg previously pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Texas to an information charging her with conspiracy to commit wire fraud related to a scheme to defraud the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), by making and presenting false reports in order to avoid fully paying contractually required commissions. See United States v. Rosenberg, 4:24-cr-00062-ALM-AGD (E.D. Tex.)

U.S. Attorney Hayden P. O’Byrne for the Southern District of Florida and Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Karen E. Kelly of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement.

IRS Criminal Investigation’s International Tax & Financial Crimes Unit is investigating the case. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided critical assistance in obtaining important evidence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ana Maria Martinez for the Southern District of Florida, Senior Litigation Counsel Mark Daly and Stan Okula, and Trial Attorney Marissa Brodney of the Tax Division, are prosecuting the case.

You may find a copy of this press release (and any updates) on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or at http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov, under case number 25-cr-20005.

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