Wall Street Journal:  U.S. Is Preparing More Tax-Evasion Cases, by Laura Saunders:

The U.S. is expanding its crackdown of offshore tax evasion, preparing numerous criminal cases against suspected offenders, defense lawyers involved in the cases say. 

Four years after an agreement between the U.S. and Switzerland pierced a veil of banking secrecy by requiring Swiss bank UBS to turn over names of account holders, defense lawyers estimate that federal prosecutors are conducting at least 100 criminal investigations against suspected tax evaders.

The moves come as the U.S. is turning the screws on smaller banks that may have helped taxpayers stash money in secret overseas accounts. …

The U.S. government already has won about 50 criminal cases and
collected at least $5.5 billion in connection with undeclared offshore
accounts. On Jan. 8, Mary Estelle Curran, a 79-year-old widow best known
for volunteer work, pleaded guilty to criminal charges of filing false
tax returns and evading about $668,000 in federal tax on $40 million her
husband left her in a secret Swiss bank account at UBS. She agreed to
pay almost $22 million, which is believed to be the largest penalty in a
criminal case on offshore accounts since the UBS agreement.

Ms. Curran is scheduled to be sentenced in West Palm Beach, Fla., federal court March 26. She faces up to six years in prison.

U.S. officials "want to send a message that no one is too old, or too
rich, or too poor, or too sympathetic to escape criminal prosecution,"
said Bryan Skarlatos, a lawyer with Kostelanetz & Fink in New York,
whose firm has defended more than 30 taxpayers in criminal
investigations involving offshore accounts.