The Federal Government today announced they had shut down and indicted the founders and operators of Liberty Reserve, a digital currency operation running out of Costa Rica.
The founder of the Liberty Reserve Arthur Budovsky , has been arrested in Spain on money-laundering charges.
The Feds allege that the operation was a $6 billion money-laundering scheme.
Authorities say the network processed at least 55 million illegal transactions worldwide.
The indictment said the company had more than a million users worldwide, including at least 200,000 in the United States, and virtually all of its business was related to suspected criminal activity.
Prosecutors said they seized 45 bank accounts allegedly used for the scheme.
Liberty Reserve is a company that allows users to apply for an account through the Internet by simply supplying a valid email address. Once a person signs up for an account, Liberty Reserve gives them a user name and an account number and they can start transferring money around the world, Costa Rican officials said.
New reports also say the feds have seized five domain names related to the operation LibertyReserve.com, ExchangeZone.com; SwiftExchanger.com; MoneyCentralMarket.com; and Asianagold.com
However as of publication all the domain names are offline but do not carry the US Government “this domain name has been seized” notices that we have gotten used to seeing.
were they bitcoin?
No this was not bitcoin
They were one of the largest ways to get cash into the bitcoin system. So I would say there were part of the overall system.