Tax Advisor to Top DJs Charged With Hiding $100M From U.S.

A Dutch tax advisor who had a client list of top DJs and fashion industry figures was charged with scheming to conceal more than $100 million from the Internal Revenue Service.

Frank Butselaar was arrested earlier in Italy on a request from the U.S. and was taken back into custody this week after a favorable ruling on an extradition request, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

Prosecutors allege that Butselaar, 63, of Naarden, in the Netherlands, conspired to hide millions of dollars of income generated by his clients, including two internationally renowned DJs that used a series of offshore entities to conceal their earnings that were held by trusts established on his advice.

Butselaar devised similar schemes for certain clients in the fashion industry, according to the U.S.

None of the clients were identified by prosecutors, but Butselaar was named in a suit filed by his former employer, law firm Greenberg Traurig, seeking a court order declaring it is not liable to Tijs Verwest, a DJ known as Tiesto, for reimbursement of payments he made for taxes due in 2016 and 2017.

The firm said in its suit, filed in February 2022 in federal court in Colorado, that Tiesto’s Dutch advisors hired Butselaar in or around 2008 to advise the DJ on an international tax structure through 2013, when Butselaar left the firm.