A Texas billionaire evaded $2 billion in taxes, feds say. Now he’s charged in the ‘largest-ever’ tax fraud case.

A Texas billionaire evaded $2 billion in taxes, feds say. Now he’s charged in the ‘largest-ever’ tax fraud case.

Robert T. Brockman was so paranoid that the Internal Revenue Service would catch on to his scheme, prosecutors said, that in June 2016 the Texas billionaire allegedly ordered his offshore money handler to travel the U.S. destroying paper evidence and “electronic media” with shredders and hammers.

But on Thursday, prosecutors alleged that his decades-long tax fraud scheme, the largest in American history, had finally caught up to him. A federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Brockman, 79, on 39 charges, including tax fraud, wire fraud, evidence tampering and money laundering, authorities said.

“The allegation of a $2 billion tax fraud is the largest ever tax charge against an individual in the United States,” David L. Anderson, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, said at a news conference.