$2.6M Hidden From IRS, $1.4M Repaid: 18-Month Tax Fraud Term

For finance and compliance professionals, this is a concrete case study in how undeclared income moves: shell corporations opened at a third party's direction, bank accounts held in entity names, and roughly $16 million in crypto acquired through the same infrastructure. The IRS successfully treated the concealment as affirmative fraud, and the restitution plus asset forfeiture show that financial-crime enforcement now pairs incarceration with aggressive recovery.

Iris Rabaya Au, the 37-year-old Orange County resident and girlfriend of Love Island 2022 winner Davide Sanclimenti, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison on September 21, 2026, closing a significant chapter in a case that links celebrity, shell companies, and cryptocurrency fraud. U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson imposed the sentence at the Los Angeles Federal Courthouse after Au pleaded guilty in March 2025 to one count of subscribing to a false tax return. The court ordered $1.4 million in restitution and required forfeiture of assets including cars, designer handbags, and three sculptures depicting 'The Godfather' — the nickname of her former partner, Adam Iza.

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The court ordered $1.4 million in restitution and required forfeiture of assets including cars, designer handbags, and three sculptures depicting 'The Godfather' — the nickname of her former partner, Adam Iza.

Prosecutors described a financial-infrastructure laundering operation spanning 2020 to 2023. At Iza's direction, Au created shell corporations and opened bank accounts in the names of those entities, then used the infrastructure to acquire roughly $16 million in cryptocurrency for Iza. More than $2.6 million was transferred from various accounts into Au's personal accounts over that period, none of which she declared to the Internal Revenue Service. She also concealed the entities and income from her own tax preparer, filing returns that reported only a small fraction of what she received. Prosecutors called these 'affirmative acts designed to prevent the IRS from learning the true extent of her income.'

The case is anchored by Iza, a self-styled cryptocurrency businessman who adopted the moniker 'The Godfather.' Iza has been in custody since 2024 and is serving a 15-year federal sentence for his role in an attempted Bitcoin robbery and kidnapping in Connecticut in August 2024. He is separately awaiting sentencing in a California federal case after pleading guilty to conspiracy against rights, wire fraud, and tax evasion. Au's sentencing therefore represents one enforcement action within a broader prosecution that has already produced a 15-year custodial outcome for the principal figure.