On Tuesday, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Joon H. Kim, Stuart M. Goldberg with the Justice Department’s Tax Division, and James D. Robnett announced that Prime Partners SA had entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the Attorney’s Office. To avoid prosecution, Prime Partners has agreed to pay $5 million to the United States.
The firm was accused of helping United States taxpayer clients open and maintain undeclared foreign bank accounts between 2001 and 2010. Prime Partners cooperated fully with the United States and produced roughly 175 client files for non-compliant taxpayer clients. Thanks to the agreement, Prime Partners will avoid prosecution.
However, the firm will be required to forfeit $4.32 million to the government and $680,000 in restitution to the IRS. As a part of the agreement, Prime Partners admitted to certain facts related to its conduct and the measures it took to rectify its conduct. Prime Partners confirmed that it knew certain U.S. taxpayers were using undeclared foreign bank accounts to evade tax obligations.
Prime Partners admitted that it assisted certain U.S. clients conceal undeclared assets from the IRS by creating sham entities, encouraging clients to avoid retaining account statements, call collect using pay phones, and destroy faxes received from Prime Partners. In some cases, Prime Partners provided clients with prepaid debit cards, which were loaded with money from the client’s undeclared accounts. It also admitted to facilitating cash transfers in the United States between U.S. taxpayer clients with undeclared accounts.
The non-prosecution agreement concludes that Prime Partners voluntarily implemented actions in 2009 to stop assisting U.S. tax payers in their attempt to elude federal taxes. Thanks to the company’s cooperation and their consent to forfeit $4.32 million to the United States, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has agreed not to prosecute the firm.
Simultaneously, the agreement requires Prime Partners to continue cooperating with the United States for three more years. The U.S. Attorney’s Office retains the right to prosecute Prime Partners in the event that they violate the non-prosecution agreement in the future.