PANews reported on December 13 that according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice, Frank Richard Ahlgren III, a resident of Austin, Texas, was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay $1,095,031 in compensation for submitting a false tax return and falsely reporting capital gains from the sale of $3.7 million worth of Bitcoin.
It is reported that between 2017 and 2019, Ahlgren falsely reported gains when selling about $4 million worth of Bitcoin, including falsifying purchase prices and failing to report transactions. He also tried to hide transaction traces through multiple wallet transfers, face-to-face cash transactions, and the use of encrypted currency mixers. The total tax loss exceeded $1 million.
Lucy Tan, acting special agent in charge of IRS-CI, said this is the first criminal tax evasion case that focuses entirely on cryptocurrency, and it demonstrates the tax regulator’s technical capabilities in tracking cryptocurrency transactions. The case was jointly investigated by IRS-CI and the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
