UBS clients Stephen M. Kerr and Michael Quiel have been charged with filing false tax returns and failure to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), the U.S. Justice Department announced on January 30. The indictment also charged the defendants, along with former San Diego attorney Christopher M. Rusch, with conspiracy to defraud. Rusch was arrested Jan. 29 in Miami after being expelled from Panama at the request of the U.S. government.

According to the indictment:

“Beginning in or before 2004, and continuing through at least December 2007, Kerr and Quiel obtained control of shares of stock of publicly traded domestic companies in a way that concealed their ownership of the stock. Kerr and Quiel then deposited the stock, or proceeds from the sale of the stock, to multiple undeclared bank accounts set up with the assistance of Rusch at UBS in Switzerland and at another Swiss bank. These accounts were all held in the names of nominee entities to further conceal Kerr’s and Quiel’s ownership.”

More from the Justice Department here: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/January/12-tax-136.html