The luxurious life of Chris Agront was all over the news, and then the Puerto Rico Department of Treasury discovered that he hadn’t even set up a SURI account to pay taxes on the island.
Puerto Rican influencer and YouTuber Chris Agront showed off his dream life on social media. Luxury cars, trips in a private jet to destinations like Rome and Dubai, and designer clothes from renowned fashion brands like Dior, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton.
But on Wednesday, the influencer’s flashy life drew attention for a different reason. The secretary of the local Department of Treasury (DT), Francisco Parés, stated that Jorge Christian Batista Agront, his real name, is being charged with tax evasion.
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The local Department of Justice filed five charges against Agront, for not reporting more than $11 million in income and not paying the DT about $7.6 million.
After filing charges for violations of the Internal Revenue Code, a judge from the San Juan Court ordered the influencer’s arrest and imposed a $100,000 bond, which he paid. Agront could be penalized with a prison term from three to eight years and a fine of up to $20,000.
Agron, 32, is originally from Ponce, and a current resident of Dorado.
In 2018, he incorporated the company JetTrades LLC that offers financial advice in the US, Puerto Rico, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Spain. He also made his fortune as a Forex currency trading network expert.
Agront has thousands of followers on his TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. On his Instagram account alone, called frombroketoprivatejets, he has 264,000 followers.
The influencer has marketed himself as a motivator and a financial educator.
Some titles of his videos are “My First Million,” “I Made Myself in Puerto Rico,” and “I bought $70,000.00 in shoes and clothes in one day.”
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Agront was even featured in Forbes Mexico, which told his story as going “from being bankrupt to becoming a millionaire.”
“Finding it in the newspaper and not seeing it in SURI definitely frames the level of evasion that we are talking about,” Sec. Parés said in a radio interview.
