Reclusive mogul accused of being the largest tax dodger in US history

Walter Anderson has done many things in his rich, varied and indubitably eccentric life.

He made a fortune in the telecommunications industry, dabbled in art collecting and, in 2000, invested US$20 million in a project to sell trips in space on the ageing Russian Mir space station.

Now the reclusive multi-millionaire could soon acquire a new and more dubious distinction, as the largest individual tax dodger in American history, accused of evading federal and local income taxes of US$210 million over five years between 1995 and 1999.

If convicted, Anderson, 51, faces up to 24 years in prison.

An Internal Revenue Service commissioner, Mark Everson, said Anderson "ended up in a class by himself" among tax evaders and "ran the table on tax violations".

Prosecutors said that in 1999 alone he made US$126 million but paid only US$494 in taxes on declared income of US$67,939.

In his first appearance in court last week, Anderson denied all charges against him and his lawyer argued that the Government's case was grossly exaggerated, and built on innuendo and rumour.

But Susan Menzer, the federal prosecutor, said he had "plenty of places to hide and plenty of money to spend".

The judge agreed, remanding him in custody at least until a second hearing.

Anderson built a fortune during the 1980s and 1990s as an investor in the booming telecommunications industry.

During that time, says the indictment, he concealed some US$450 million of taxable income through overseas corporations.

Foremost among them was Gold & Appel Transfer, set up by Anderson in 1992 in the British Virgin Islands, known to be a haven for tax evasion and international money laundering at the time.

The territory tightened its procedures when the US clamped down on international terrorist financial networks after the terror attacks of 2001.

Prosecutors said Anderson also claimed at various times to be a resident of the Dominican Republic, though he lived in the Washington DC area, and used private postal addresses in the Netherlands to hide his trail.

They accuse him of setting up a network of companies in Panama and elsewhere, under a variety of aliases.

- INDEPENDENT