Billionaire Robert Brockman’s tax fraud case made headlines around the world and Bermuda was at its centre for all the wrong reasons. Sam Strangeways looks back at how the island became embroiled in the largest such prosecution in the United States.

Evatt Tamine was a lawyer in Bermuda for most of the last 20 years – but you’re unlikely to have heard about his legal work here.

Between 2001 and 2018, the Australian quietly worked for a secretive Texan billionaire who was, according to allegations by the Department of Justice in the United States, engaged in one of the “costliest and most sophisticated tax crimes” in the history of that country.

Until the home he had shared on Hidden Lane in Fairylands with his Bermudian wife and children was raided by detectives in September 2018, Mr Tamine was seemingly, in the words of one source, “a nobody”.

But he became a key witness for the DoJ in the largest tax evasion prosecution ever brought against an individual in the US.

Little did those who knew Mr Tamine as a parent at Bermuda High School for Girls, or as an avid football fan who travelled the globe with friends for the World Cup, realise the high-stakes nature of his work.

His testimony before a Grand Jury in October 2020 led to his former boss, Robert T Brockman, a car-dealership software mogul, being indicted on 39 criminal charges, including tax evasion, wire fraud and money laundering – and it placed Bermuda right at the heart of the scandal.

Mr Brockman, who denied the charges, died aged 81 in August last year, before he could stand trial.

The island was mentioned 29 times in the 42-page indictment and reference was made to four Bermudian entities within a “complex network of offshore companies and trusts” allegedly used by Mr Brockman to hide some $2 billion in income from the Internal Revenue Service in the US.

In addition, Tangarra Consultants, an exempt company set up by Mr Tamine here in 2003, along with entities elsewhere, was said by prosecutors to have been used by Mr Brockman to buy $67.8 million in debt securities from his software company Reynolds & Reynolds, without disclosure, as the law would require him to do as CEO.

Bermuda Commercial Bank is mentioned 17 times in the indictment, with prosecutors claiming that Mr Brockman caused accounts to be opened there under the names of different entities, each containing millions of dollars. Some funds were alleged to have been moved to Swiss bank accounts.

The case has been written about extensively in the international press and a civil judgment here regarding a multibillion-dollar trust shone an even brighter light on the island’s role in the alleged scheme.

The May 6, 2022 ruling ordered Mr Tamine to pay back more than $28 million he was alleged to have “wrongfully” taken from a company linked to the A Eugene Brockman Charitable Trust.

He denies any wrongdoing.

Bermuda’s involvement stretches back to May 1981 when the charitable foundation, named after Mr Brockman’s father, was settled here, listing Mr Brockman, his wife, his brother and his sister-in-law as beneficiaries.

That entity now has an estimated $6 billion in assets, according to court documents, and the question of who should have stewardship of those funds has been hotly contested in the Bermuda Supreme Court.

In 1995, the St John’s Trust Company was set up here to act as trustee for the Brockman Charitable Trust. The indictment claimed Mr Brockman “completely controlled” the Brockman Charitable Trust, St John’s and the other offshore entities at all times.

It was alleged that from 1999 to 2019 he channelled some of his income from investments in the funds of a private equity firm called Vista – owned by another US billionaire called Robert F Smith – into offshore bank accounts, trusts and other entities to evade payment of US taxes.

Mr Smith has admitted hiding profits in offshore accounts and filing false tax returns for ten years and will not face prosecution.

Mr Brockman had committed $1 billion to Vista’s first private equity fund, according to prosecutors.

He was accused of using nominees to create a “false paper trail” in a conspiracy to disguise his direct control of the offshore entities, which included the charitable trust, St John’s and an entity called Point Investments, all based here.

The charitable trust gave considerable sums in educational scholarships for students at Texas A&M University, as well as funding medical research, and it had staff here who, it is understood, worked for a period of time at “Bewdley”, a wood-panelled Grade II-listed mansion on Richmond Road owned by Mr Tamine and his Bermudian wife, lawyer Sophie Tod.

Mr Tamine first became aware of Mr Brockman, according to a January 4, 2021 affidavit he swore in relation to the civil litigation here, while working for Cox Hallett Wilkinson law firm in Bermuda between 1999 and 2001.

He said he was later hired by Mr Brockman and agreed to take up a role working in Bermuda in respect of the A Eugene Brockman Charitable Trust and various other structures connected with Mr Brockman.

Mr Tamine said he was advised by Don Jones, an American expatriate who worked in Bermuda for Mr Brockman, to set up a company so he could obtain a Bermuda work permit.

Mr Tamine incorporated Tangarra as an exempt company in July 2003 and the firm then signed a consultancy agreement with Wedge Consulting, a company owned by Mr Jones.

But Mr Tamine said he “reported directly to Mr Brockman” on a “very regular” basis.

From January 2004, he began to do work involving the Brockman Trust and “various other structures connected with Mr Brockman”.

That work eventually became highly lucrative. By July 2015, Mr Tamine had a $2.6 million annual pay package, according to his affidavit.

Mr Tamine got married in October 2007 to Ms Tod, who had worked for Appleby and Conyers law firms and been legal counsel at the Bermuda Monetary Authority, where she advised on the regulation of the trust, insurance and investment industries.

She was starting a job with a law firm in Geneva and the couple moved there, where Mr Tamine continued to work for Mr Brockman.

In August 2010, Mr Tamine and Ms Tod moved back to Bermuda and he became a director of St John’s Trust Company.

The same year the couple bought, renovated and moved into “Yadow”, on the corner of Hidden Lane and Pitts Bay Road in Fairylands. The house cost them $1.62 million.

The DoJ indictment against Mr Brockman claims that by 2007, the Brockman Trust, St John’s Trust Company, Point and a Nevis-based company called Spanish Steps Holdings LLC were all managed, in part or in whole, by an unnamed person, referred to as “Individual One” who was paid an annual salary by Mr Brockman.

Prosecutors describe how Individual One asked Mr Brockman to “purchase a house for Individual One in Australia, where Individual One’s family could live if Individual One were to ‘be subjected to proceedings’”.

“On or about June 29, 2014, Brockman, using his encrypted e-mail system, agreed to provide Individual One with $3 million to purchase a home in Australia,” alleged prosecutors.

In November 2019, it was reported by Australian media that Mr Tamine and Ms Tod – described as “expats returning from Bermuda” – had bought a $7.5 million mansion in Balmain, Sydney, a record amount for the affluent suburb.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph reported at the same time that Mr Tamine was preparing to auction an investment property he had bought for $3.9 million in 2014 in the Mosman suburb.

The indictment alleges that Mr Brockman, a keen fisherman, used Point and other entities to buy two multimillion-dollar properties in Colorado and the $29 million luxury yacht Turmoil, which he renamed Albula.

According to prosecutors, in December 2017, Mr Brockman told Individual One in an encrypted e-mail to position Albula in Barcelona for his upcoming holiday, so he did not get billed for the costs of moving the vessel.

They say he told Individual One that for “appearances sake it would probably be good for you [and your family] to take some vacation in that time frame before we get there”.

Ms Tod, 51, who is still listed as a practising member of the Bar in Bermuda, told The Royal Gazette she had no involvement with Mr Tamine’s work for Mr Brockman.

“I’m not a player at all,” she said. “I’m not even a minor player.”

She added: “To say I am involved in any way is massively overegging it.”

She said she had never been asked to comment on the Brockman case before and that it was both “tacky” and “not fair” to link her to it.

Ms Tod said the educational scholarships given out by the Brockman Trust were her husband’s idea and she helped out “for her sins” as a volunteer by “doing lots of boring stuff, setting up meetings and washing glasses”.

But she said she and Mr Tamine had “completely separate lives professionally”.

Her husband’s January 2021 affidavit in the civil proceedings details how he and Mr Brockman resolved that he would buy “Bewdley” and renovate it using a loan from the billionaire and then lease the property to the St John’s Trust Company, as the headquarters for the charitable trust.

The property, set in what one real estate advert described as “three verdant acres”, had at the time been on the market for several years for more than $8 million. He told the court the purchase price was $4.8 million.

Mr Tamine said in his affidavit that the loan from Mr Brockman was for almost $2.5 million and was repaid from his remuneration package in 2016 and 2017.

He said he received it alongside another $2.9 million “in respect of his remuneration and pension”.

He said he also received $16.8 million as a six-year advance on his salary and £5 million to cover his legal costs after the raid on his home, but the judge rejected his evidence in the May 6 civil ruling.

Chief Justice Narinder Hargun said there was “no documentary ‘proof’ of how Mr Tamine” — having earlier agreed to repay the amounts — “now says that there is no obligation to repay...”.

The Royal Gazette understands that “Bewdley” — which has an annual rental value of $117,000 and is classified as residential for land tax purposes— was used by staff administering the Brockman scholarships for a period of time but is no longer.

A government spokesman said in September 2021: “The address is a residential property and no applications have been received requesting its use as a commercial property.”

The website for the Brockman Scholars Programme said the “future direction of the programme is currently being evaluated” and applications were not being accepted for this academic year.

Ms Tod emphasised to the Gazette that those who worked for the charitable foundation here did not have “anything to do with Robert Brockman”.

She said: “We had no knowledge of where the money comes from and whether or not there is some tax liability.

“The charitable work shouldn’t be tainted by Robert Brockman’s issues. Everybody else was just running a really good charitable foundation. It’s a shame.

“St John’s and the scholarship foundation was only ever geared towards charitable giving.

“To be honest, my husband ran a charity and that’s what he basically did and that’s what took up all his time.”

Ms Tod said the police raid at Hidden Lane happened six months after the family had moved to England and was “exaggerated” by the media.

She said her former directorship of Fund II Foundation — a grant-giving charitable organisation founded by Vista CEO Mr Smith — was unrelated to Mr Brockman.

“That’s a US foundation. There were a number of directors of Fund II Foundation.

“I was approached by Robert Smith; nothing to do with Robert Brockman and his larger team …

“I resigned a while ago, back in 2018. I was just too busy.”

Bloomberg reported in August last year that millions of dollars was transferred into Fund II Foundation from a trust in Belize and a Cayman entity.

Ms Tod got $25,000 a year for one hour of work a week — equivalent to $480 an hour — for being a director of Fund II Foundation, according to public records on grantmakers.io.

Mr Tamine resigned as director of St John’s Trust Company after the police raid at “Yadow”.

In all of this, he has admitted no wrongdoing and fought to have references to Tangarra removed from the indictment against his former boss (see separate story).

In a surprise development in November 2021, he testified that Mr Brockman had broken no laws in the US.

His wife said in September 2021 that the criminal case in the US “doesn’t really affect us. He [Evatt] is not indicted.”

Mr Tamine remained a practising member of the Bermuda Bar until 2019.

He was given immunity from prosecution in the US and moved with his wife and daughters to a leafy East Sussex village. The home they were living in was recently sold after being put up for sale for $1.45 million.

A memo he is said to have written in 2017 — which formed part of the DoJ case against Mr Brockman — mentions a UK apartment “which is in the name of Sophie’s personal family trust”.

It is understood that Mr Tamine and Ms Tod may still own “Yadow” and “Bewdley” as well as “Hexham”, the mansion in Sydney.

Nicholas Pedro, Acting Assistant Commissioner of the Bermuda Police Service, told the Gazette in September 2021: “We can neither confirm or deny that we are currently investigating Mr Evatt Tamine.

“We also note that under certain circumstances we cannot in law disclose the existence of an investigation of matters under the Proceeds of Crime Act, which is not an admission or confirmation of any existing investigation.

“The Bermuda Police Service takes its local and international obligations to combat money laundering and all forms of financial crimes very seriously, and we would like to take this opportunity to reassure the public and media that we will continue to work with our international partners to prevent Bermuda’s financial system being used for illicit purposes.”

Hubert Esperon, then CEO of Bermuda Commercial Bank, said in September 2021: “BCB is co-ordinating with the Bermuda Police Service regarding this ongoing legacy matter. However, banks are restricted from commenting further on active investigations.”

A spokeswoman for the Attorney-General’s Chambers said: “As this matter is still before the courts, the AG’s Chambers will not comment.”

Mr Tamine did not respond to a request for comment in September 2021 by press time.

• This article was previously published on The Royal Gazette website on September 16, 2021. It has been updated and edited to remove references to and content from an affidavit sworn by Evatt Tamine in 2020 which is the subject of a Supreme Court injunction. References and content from a 2021 affidavit sworn by Mr Tamine, which appear in a May 6, 2022 Supreme Court civil ruling, have been added.