Satoshi Era Bitcoin Buyer Jailed for Two Years in First U.S. Crypto Tax Evasion Sentencing

A Satoshi era Bitcoin investor was sentenced to two years in prison, after he underreported the capital gains he earned from selling $3.7 million worth of BTC. This marks the conclusion of the first ever U.S. criminal tax evasion prosecution centered solely on cryptocurrency.

Frank Richard Ahlgren III bought Bitcoin in 2011, the last year of recorded contact with Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Ahlgren then sold his funds between 2017 to 2019 for $4.35 million, but misrepresented these figures to his accountant and in his tax filings. The total tax loss, calculated by the U.S. Department of Justice, is over $1 million. With his crypto fortunes, the Texas man bought a house.

As such, the tax fraudster has been sentenced to two years in prison, ordered to serve one year supervised release, and pay $1,095,031 in restitution.

“[He] earned millions buying and selling Bitcoin,” Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Tax Division Stuart M. Goldberg said in a release. “He lied to his accountant about the extent of a large portion of his gains, and sought to conceal another chunk of his profits through sophisticated techniques designed to obscure his transactions.”

Namely, the Texas man attempted to hide how much he’d made from the investment by exchanging Bitcoin for cash in-person, passing funds through a number of wallets, and using crypto mixers—protocols that attempt to obfuscate the sender and receiver of assets. He also artificially inflated the price at which he purchased Bitcoin to reduce the amount of tax he owed.

“Ahlgren will serve time because he believed his cryptocurrency transactions were untraceable.” Acting Special Agent in Charge of IRS-Criminal Investigation Houston Field Office, Lucy Tan, said, “This case demonstrates that no one is above the law. My team at IRS Criminal Investigation has the expertise and tools to track financial activity, whether it involves dollars, pesos, or cryptocurrency.”

The Texas man bought Bitcoin in 2011, the same year that Satoshi stated that he was moving onto other things. Since then, the Bitcoin founder has been missing in action despite his creation becoming more popular than ever before. It remains the largest unsolved mystery in the crypto industry—although many have tried.

Edited by Stacy Elliott.