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Roger Ver
Roger Ver, who holds an Antiguan and Barbudan passport, was granted bail by Spanish authorities in the amount of €150,000 ($163,000).
Ver was ordered to surrender his passport and visit a Spanish court every two days as part of his bail conditions.
This decision comes as the US seeks his extradition over tax fraud charges. Prosecutors tried to appeal his release, but their efforts were rejected.
Ver, a prominent bitcoin investor, was arrested in late April after the US accused him of defrauding the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of over $48 million.
Interestingly, just days before his arrest, he published his new book, Hijacking Bitcoin, a unique take on Bitcoin’s 2015-2017 blocksize wars.
The allegations against Ver are based on the claim that he allegedly concealed and provided false information about the number and value of bitcoins he owned and controlled, both personally and through his companies, to his advisors.
Ver’s lawyer, Jaime Campaner, pointed out that Ver had been in touch with US authorities through his Californian lawyers prior to his arrest, asserting that his arrest didn’t make sense.
Ver’s history as a major figure in the bitcoin world dates back to when he owned companies MemoryDealers.com Inc. and Agilestar.com Inc., during which time he bought bitcoin for both himself and his firms, earning him the moniker ‘Bitcoin Jesus.’
Roger Ver was granted an Antiguan and Barbudan passport in May 2020, which expires next year.
Ver is also the Principal of the Stem Cell Research Center in Antigua and Barbuda.
Too much non-national criminals are in positions of our Antigua and Barbuda passport. The government needs to do better when granting our passport to non-nationals—proper background checks into their personal life and records.