US Crypto Trader Sentenced to Prison for Tax Evasion

On December 12, a court in the Western District of Texas sentenced local resident Frank Algren III to two years in prison for submitting false income data from bitcoin sales.

“Frank Algren III made millions buying and selling bitcoins. But instead of paying the taxes he knew were due, he lied to his accountant about the size of a significant portion of his profits and attempted to conceal others,” noted the US Department of Justice.

According to law enforcement, the man had been purchasing bitcoins since 2011. In 2015, he acquired approximately 1366 BTC on Coinbase at a price below $495.56. In October 2017, Algren sold 640 BTC for $3.7 million and used the proceeds to buy a house in Utah.

When preparing his 2017 tax return, he significantly inflated the purchase price of the bitcoins. According to the Department of Justice, this price exceeded the market maximum recorded before the house purchase.

In 2018 and 2019, Algren failed to report income from bitcoin sales amounting to $650,000. Instead, he attempted to conceal the transactions by passing the coins through various wallets and crypto mixers.

Algren evaded approximately $1 million in taxes. According to the court’s decision, he will have to reimburse this amount to the state.

“Algren will serve time because he believed his cryptocurrency transactions were untraceable. This case demonstrates that no one is above the law,” stated Acting Special Agent Lucy Tan from the IRS Criminal Investigation Division.

She added that this is the first criminal case for tax evasion “focused solely on cryptocurrency.”

Earlier, Bitcoin.com founder Roger Ver, who faces 109 years in prison for tax evasion, accused the US government of politically motivated persecution.