U.S. authorities have charged in an unsealed indictment the operators of Liberty Reserve, which one senior law enforcement official dubbed the “PayPal for criminals,” according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Details of Liberty Reserve’s shutdown first emerged over the weekend, as reports indicated that founder Arthur Budvosky Belanchuk had been arrested in Spain. The indictment now claims that Liberty Reserve helped to launder more than $6 billion over the past seven years. Officials from 17 countries are now involved in the case, in what’s “believed to be the largest international money laundering prosecution in history,” according to the Journal.
Seven of Liberty Reserve’s principals and employees were indicted on charges: five of whom, including Belanchuk, were arrested Friday in Spain, Costa Rica and Brooklyn, N.Y. Official seized or restricted activity of 45 bank accounts and seized five domain names.
“Liberty Reserve was in fact used extensively for illegal purposes, functioning in effect as the bank of choice for the criminal underworld,” the Journal notes as one of the indictment’s statements.
Read the full story here.
