Gaffey helped various US taxpayers evade their tax reporting obligations in a variety of ways, hiding the beneficial ownership of his clients’ offshore shell companies and setting up bank accounts for those shell companies. Tens of millions of dollars evaded the IRS. Gaffey advised one taxpayer to covertly repatriate approximately US$3 million to the United States by reporting to the IRS a fictitious company sale. Ramses Owens, a Panamanian lawyer who worked at Mossack Fonseca, helped him. Owens is still on the run.

Gaffey falsely claimed that von der Goltz’s elderly mother was the sole beneficial owner of the shell companies and bank accounts at issue because, at all relevant times, she was a Guatemalan citizen and resident, and – unlike von der Goltz – was not a US taxpayer. In support of this pretence, Gaffey submitted the name, date of birth, government passport number and address of the old lady to a US bank in Manhattan. He is to be sentenced on 29 June.  Von der Goltz is to be sentenced on 24 June.