Belarus Extradites American Accountant Who Hid in Russia for Almost 10 Years from Tax Case
Brian Booker was arrested in Belarus at the request of the Americans in May 2025. He was held for a year, and eventually deported to Miami — into the hands of American police.
Belarus expelled accountant Brian Nelson Booker to the USA. He is accused of tax crimes and providing false information to the authorities.
According to the US Department of Justice, Booker left the US in 2016 when he learned that a criminal investigation was being conducted against him.
He lived in Russia, which never extradited him to the American authorities. In May 2025, Booker was detained in Belarus. He was held in custody for almost a year until a decision was made on his expulsion. On July 24, 2026, the accountant returned to the US and was detained at Miami airport.
According to the indictment, Booker owned a Panamanian company that traded cocoa. He managed it from Venezuela, Panama, and his home in Florida. The investigation claims that in 2011-2013, he failed to declare accounts in Switzerland, Singapore, and Panama, although he was obliged to submit annual reports for them. Additionally, in his tax returns for 2010-2012, according to the indictment, he did not disclose all his foreign accounts.
Booker is also accused of having used the American voluntary disclosure program for foreign assets and submitting a false statement in the process. In it, he claimed that he had unintentionally failed to declare income and accounts.
A larger, second superseding indictment against Booker was approved by a federal grand jury back in July 2021.
For each instance of undeclared accounts and false information, Booker faces up to five years in prison, and for each instance of filing false documents with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — up to three years.
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