"Bitcoin Jesus" Roger Ver indicted for tax evasion

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Bitcoin evangelist Roger Ver for evading $50 million in taxes.

Roger Ver, best known as the founder of Bitcoin.com and one of the first investors in Bitcoin, was arrested in Spain after being charged by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The charge, which was released Monday, accuses Ver of evading nearly $50 million in taxes.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Ver is charged three times with mail fraud, twice of tax evasion and three times of filing a false tax return.

Roger Ver renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014. He now holds the citizenship of St Kitts and Nevis. In the US, however, renouncing US citizenship comes with extensive tax obligations.

One of these obligations is to pay a "exit tax" on global capital gains. Among other things, Ver allegedly did not pay this tax in full.

The indictment accuses him of making false statements to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, about the actual size of his Bitcoin assets.

Despite owning 131,000 Bitcoin through his US companies MemoryDealers and Agilestar, Ver failed to inform the IRS of the capital gains realized from its sale in 2017.

The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that Ver provided or caused to be provided false or misleading information to a law firm and assessor that helped him renounce his U.S. citizenship.

Shortly before his arrest, Ver did a cryptic statement on X: "Don't expect bad people to do good things," possibly referring to his current legal situation.