American Jailed for Hiding Money in Belize

A Florida national is headed to jail for using hidden Belize accounts to conspire to commit tax and bank fraud. Forty-eight-year-old Casey Padula of Port Charlotte, Florida, pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced this week to fifty-seven months imprisonment; three years of supervised release; a fine of one hundred thousand U.S. dollars and payment of restitution to the Internal Revenue Service and Bank of America. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Padula hid funds from his marketing and I.T. company Demandblox Incorporated in two offshore accounts based at Heritage Bank, depositing nearly two point five million U.S. dollars between 2012 and 2013 which he used to pay for personal expenses and purchase significant personal assets. It cost the government more than seven hundred thousand U.S. dollars. There was additional fraud found regarding an undisclosed separate investment account through Heritage Bank at Cayman Islands-based Clover Asset Management worth over a million U.S. dollars. Padula also short-sold his home mortgage with Bank of America using money hidden in one of his Heritage Bank accounts.