Two Cayman Islands-based firms have pleaded guilty to charges that they conspired with clients to hide more than $130 million in offshore accounts, according to the U.S. Justice Department. 

The firms, Cayman National Securities Ltd.and Cayman National Trust Co. Ltd., used sham financial structures to help U.S. taxpayers conceal their ownership of these foreign accounts. These sham structures included shell companies whose only purpose was to hide client assets, and trusts that were nominally controlled by the firms but were actually controlled by the client.  

The companies have agreed to pay the U.S. a total of $6 million and will turn over the files of non-compliant U.S. taxpayers who maintained accounts with them. 

 “Today’s convictions make clear that our focus is not on any one bank, insurance company or asset management firm, or even any one country,” said Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Goldberg of the Justice Department’s Tax Division. “The Department and IRS are following the money across the globe – there are no safe havens for U.S. citizens engaged in tax evasion or those actively assisting them.”