I’m facing extradition to the U.S. where I could receive a 109-year sentence, which I believe is politically motivated due to my advocacy for Bitcoin. I’ve reached out to former President Trump for help as my legal options are running out. Charged with tax evasion related to $240 million in Bitcoin sales, I argue that the charges are unjust since I renounced my U.S. citizenship in 2014. My legal team is alarmed by the IRS's actions against me, especially after I complied with tax obligations when leaving the country.
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@ElijahSchaffer - E
**BREAKING: Bitcoin Pioneer Roger Ver Faces Extradition to US for 109-Year Sentence**
Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin adopter, is reportedly on the brink of extradition to the United States where he could face up to 109 years in prison. Ver alleges that he's been targeted by the U.S. government for advocating the use of Bitcoin over the U.S. dollar.
In a desperate plea, Ver has reached out to former President Trump for assistance as his legal options dwindle. He was charged with tax evasion, which he claims is politically motivated, and is now seeking to have these charges dropped.
Having renounced his U.S. citizenship back in 2014 due to legal pressures from the Obama administration, Ver was later indicted by the Biden Department of Justice in 2024 for not reporting taxes on $240 million worth of Bitcoin sold in 2017, despite no longer being a U.S. citizen.
Ver accuses the Biden administration of waging a "war on crypto," targeting him specifically. His legal team states, "As a former federal prosecutor, it is truly alarming to see that the criminal arm of the IRS can torment a former citizen, who actually paid millions in taxes based on a draconian 'exit tax' and scrupulously followed the advice of his tax professionals."
Video Transcript AI Summary
I'm being extradited from Spain to the US to face 109 years in prison for tax evasion, even though I'm not a US citizen during the period in question. I believe this isn't about taxes; it's about my defiance. I was the first to invest in Bitcoin and promote its use globally as an alternative to government-controlled currencies. This threatened governments, and I knew it was dangerous. I renounced my US citizenship in 2014 and became a citizen of Saint Kitts, believing this would protect me. Despite meticulously following tax laws, I was arrested shortly after publishing a book exposing the hijacking of Bitcoin. My arrest is retaliation for promoting cryptocurrency as a competitor to the US dollar and other established currencies. Effectively, they want me dead in prison. As the founder of several major cryptocurrency companies, I seeded the first generation of cryptocurrency firms, and my actions directly challenge the status quo.
Speaker 0: You are being extradited from Spain, an ally in Western Europe, a NATO country, to The United States by the US Justice Department to face life in prison, a hundred and nine years, for tax evasion. You're not a US citizen. The period that you're being charged with evading American taxes, you are not a US citizen. And so whenever I see a story that says the US government is extraditing somebody for tax evasion to put them in prison for a hundred and nine years, my first thought is maybe it's not really about the taxes. Maybe there's something more to this story.
Could there be another reason the US government is angry at you and wants to put you in prison for the rest of your life?
Speaker 1: Yeah. To be honest, I think they're not really angry about taxes at all. I think they're just angry about my lack of obedience and and lack of, you know, kissing that ring. I was the first person in the entire world to start investing in the Bitcoin ecosystem and investing in businesses that made it easy for people to use Bitcoin as money and as cash for people all over the world. And I was promoting it since 02/2011 as, hey, stop using the US dollar, stop using euros, stop using yen, start using Bitcoin.
We have an alternative in which each individual anywhere on the planet can be in charge of their own money completely without needing permission from any politician or any government anywhere in the world. And when you're a government that loves controlling people through the control of the money supply, that's very, very threatening to their control of the world. So of course, they didn't like that at all. And, I knew that this sort of thing was dangerous, and I thought the safest path for me would be to not be a US citizen. So in 2014, I renounced my US citizenship and, became a, you know, a citizen of the world effectively.
But my new, nationality is Saint Kitts, which is a wonderful little island in the Caribbean, And I thought that that would be safe, for me and I could promote Bitcoin from from there and obey even though I may disagree with plenty of laws, I do my best to obey them because I know when you're and advocating for things that change the world, governments don't like that, and they can come after you. So I told all my tax attorneys and everybody else we have to do everything perfect so that there's no room for The US Government to give me a hard time about any of this. And more than a decade after I had already renounced my US citizenship and just a couple of weeks after I published a book on the hijacking of Bitcoin, how it no longer works as peer to peer cash to the world and it's been morphed into to something that is just a a digital asset that people are speculating on the price on rather than something that can compete with the US dollar and the euro and the yen for use as currency around the world. Suddenly, right after my book gets published that exposes how people claiming to work for intelligence agencies hijacked Bitcoin to do that, suddenly I get arrested and tossed in jail, in Spain and trying to be extradited to face more than a hundred years in prison.
I'm 45 today. I think my odds of being alive with conventional technology in a hundred nine years from now aren't looking too good. So effectively, to die in prison is what they want because they're so upset about the things I've been saying and the way I've been promoting cryptocurrency around the world. As the founder of bitcoin.com, cofounder of, XRP and Blockchain.com and a bunch of other companies, I literally seeded the entire first generation of cryptocurrency companies, and so they're furious at me for trying to to have something that can compete with the US dollar as the world's, medium of exchange and and currency.
