A Spanish court has released early Bitcoin (BTC) investor Roger Ver on bail, while he awaits possible extradition to the United States.
According to a June 5 Bloomberg report, Ver posted roughly $163,000 in bail on May 17, allowing him to leave Spanish jail. The terms of his release reportedly require him to remain in Spain, surrender his passport, and appear in court every two days.
On April 30, the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against Ver for mail fraud, tax evasion and filing false tax returns. Authorities alleged he defrauded the Internal Revenue Service of roughly $48 million by failing to report capital gains through his sales of BTC and other assets.
Though born in California, Ver renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014 and no longer holds a passport to the country. He currently holds citizenship with Saint Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda. U.S. officials said they planned to extradite Ver from Spain to the United States to stand trial.
Related: Crypto veterans call out DOJ for targeting Roger Ver a decade after he left US
Ver, an outspoken proponent of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), was also embroiled in a 2022 scandal with CoinFlex, which claimed the “Bitcoin Jesus” owed the platform $47 million in USD Coin (USDC). In 2002 and 2003, he spent 10 months in federal prison in the U.S. for selling explosives on eBay.
“I didn’t really believe that it would be just like summer camp, but I didn’t think I was going to be locked in a little tiny cell 24 hours a day for the first four or five days straight,” said Ver in a July 2018 video describing his incarceration. “The real punishment about going to prison is being separated from every single person you know in life — being completely separated from all of your family, all of your friends, from everybody you know.”
According to the Justice Department, Ver could face a maximum sentence of up to “20 years in federal prison for each mail fraud count, up to five years in federal prison for each tax evasion count, and up to three years in federal prison for each count of subscribing to a false tax return” if convicted. He has not posted to social media platforms since his arrest.
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