Liberty Reserve: 'Black Market Bank' Accused of Laundering $6B in Criminal Proceeds

Liberty Reserve: 'Black Market Bank' Accused of Laundering $6B in Criminal Proceeds

abcnews.go.com

Internet bank Liberty Reserve is being charged with laundering $6 billion in suspected crime proceeds, including the illegal profits from credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography and narcotics trafficking.

Prosecutors say it "may be the largest international money laundering case ever brought by the United States."

(visit the link for the full news article)


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The owners of Liberty Reserve have been caught on record stating that their operation was 'illegal' and specifically designed to flaunt US money laundering laws, and was created in the aftermath of the eGold.com raids and indictments.

From the various articles:

• Arthur Budovsky, founder of Liberty Reserve, arrested in Spain on Friday
  
• Six others have also been charged in $6 billion money transfer scheme
  
• Liberty Reserve allowed users to convert money to online currency
  
• Transactions 'hid the proceeds of crimes including credit card fraud, child pornography, identity theft and drugs trafficking'
  
• U.S. Attorney: 'It was the bank of choice for the criminal underworld'

PDF of the indictment is here

Supposedly more than one million LR users/accounts have been seized for now, and if eGold showed us anything, is that no one will ever see that money again.

Pretty much ANY server-based ecurrency, no matter where it's homebased from, is beyond touch. This I'm sure will cause more people to jump onto the Bitcoin bandwagon.

abcnews.go.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

How is this "illegal" or "black market" bank and its laundering of criminal money any different than "legal" or "main street" banks?

Oh, that's right... it's not.

This is nothing more than a bunch of good ol' boys keeping the money in the circle and not letting anyone else join the club. Don't be surprised if Bitcoin is next.

S&F

~Namaste

So can they make a deal like the big "legitimate" banks did to avoid prosecution?

WACHOVIA ENTERS INTO DEFERRED PROSECUTION AGREEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMarch 17, 2010
Bank Agrees to Pay $160 Million

www.justice.gov...

reply to post by boncho



I am confused to hell as to why they are claiming: "Prosecutors say it "may be the largest international money laundering case ever brought by the United States.""

One thing the American government has not done is to prosecute the largest banks in the world for supporting the drug cartels by washing billions of dollars of their blood stained money. As Narco sphere journalist Bill Conroy has observed banks are ”where the money is” in the global drug war.

HSBC, Western Union, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase&Co, Citigroup, Wachovia amongst many others have allegedly failed to comply with American anti-money laundering (AML) laws.

This was due to Wachovias heavy involvement in money laundering moving up to $378.4 billion over several years.


Not one banker was prosecuted for illegal involvement in the drugs trade.

Source

Unless I am super, totally, absolutely, retarded in my math skills... 378.4 billion dollars seems like a larger amount than 6 billion.

Unless 6 billion is to the power of 10 when it's not a state sponsored money laundering bank which control parts of the money supply, and have their hands dipped in absolutely everything, so if they went down it would bring half the world with it.

Or perhaps, 6 billion is the equivalent of 600 billion, in the eyes of competitors to mainstay, mainstream banks which have done the same thing but avoided prosecution by giving public payoffs.



I'm confused here, someone help me out.

Only internationally-sanctioned national reserve banks are allowed to do this (albeit virtually via credit-line and spreadsheet manipulations).

There should also be an investigation into how long this bank operated and which board members appointed the officers of the corporation.

Notice which officers are NOT indicted.

I don't doubt they arrested the right people.... I just doubt they've arrested enough.

... but that's just me.

Pretty much ANY server-based ecurrency, no matter where it's homebased from, is beyond touch. This I'm sure will cause more people to jump onto the Bitcoin bandwagon

Hmm, I wrote exactly the opposite of what I meant... What I meant to say was "ANY server-based ecurrency, no matter where it's homebased from, is not beyond touch".

Liberty Reserve was just one of dozens of 'eGold' styled ecurrencies, that operate from a central server and are tied to various real-world banking accounts, even if they do try to obfuscate their origins for supposed "anonymity".

I think it also shows the world banking hegemony is calling the shots and can take out any perceived threats to their banking structure.

We can only wonder what depths they'll go to, to defeat Bitcoin. My guess is instead of going after it at its source (like eGold or Liberty Reserve), they'll go after individual users, as they do now with P2P file sharing.

Ok hold on, let me put on my surprised face.......wait for it........

So a criminal enterprise is caught dealing with other criminals money. How is this news?

The news will be in 2 years after the story is old and no one prosecuted. The said criminal enterprise is then asked to pony up criminal money as a fine to their criminal governments. Which again isn't really news either.

Want to write a smash piece? Lets talk about how all citizens are then culpable through sheer ignorance for supporting these criminal institutions with our own cash. Or for even supporting the dollar. Technically we should all protest the dollar for it is that which is responsible for millions of lost lives and the starvation of countless children.

Sounds like the banking cartel taking down a bit player so they can take over the action.

This stuff is really just par for the course these days. The big players with their government guaranteed get of jail free cards get away with high crimes while the small fish get hit. I remember not so long ago when the US government went after Americans with undeclared overseas bank accounts and they hit the Swiss for full disclosure, yet didn't touch any of the offshore banks just a short boat ride away! I wonder why that was?