U.S. Government Seizes LibertyReserve.com

[grumpy]

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/05/u-s-government-seizes-libertyreserve-com/

No one hurt?

[Jman]

what was the site before?

[grumpy]

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/05/u...tyreserve-com/

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

Seeing the feds crack down on a provider of anonymous online payments will make some ears in the Bitcoin community perk up; the feds are paying close attention to how virtual currencies are being used. As Tim Lee of the Washington Post notes, the way Liberty Reserve is described in the indictment ?could just as easily describe Bitcoins."

200,000 US Liberty Reserve members...wonder which (if any) GFYers are affected by this (surprised not much attention on GFY considering the international impact of the story).



ADG

[tahiti]

glad I cashed out before!

[Fat Panda]

keep taking down these motherfucking CRIMINALS!

[tahiti]

Originally Posted by SAC

keep taking down these motherfucking CRIMINALS!

as criminal as paypal.

[Pink Misfit]

I never really liked liberty reserve I think I might have used it two times in the last 2 years. I do know some still have money sitting in their accounts though.

[pornguy]

Who owned it who was arrested etc?

[tahiti]

Originally Posted by pornguy

Who owned it who was arrested etc?

The indictment charges seven of the company?s principals and employees. Five of them were arrested Friday in Spain, Costa Rica and Brooklyn.
Liberty Reserve was incorporated in Costa Rica in 2006 by Arthur Budovsky, who renounced his United States citizenship in 2011, and was arrested in Spain on Friday.

[Porndex]

I am guessing the aims of this action have Bitcoin in mind?

[_Richard_]

Originally Posted by tahiti

as criminal as paypal.

that's last

[FingerPrinter]

Originally Posted by tahiti

as criminal as paypal.

Paypal not NEARLY as criminal you dimwitted ignorant fucking faggot

[BlackCrayon]

i'm surprised they lasted as long as they did.

[pornmasta]

see sig...

[adultmobile]

The USA govt took the money of the users: "At least 45 bank accounts with a total of $25 million have been restrained or seized.". Some russians and indians who got big cash there may suicide now.

They are going against all the exchangers from/to libertyreserve, look the nice govt logos at: http://Exchangezone.com, http://Swiftexchanger.com, http://MoneyCentralMarket.com, http://AsianaGold.com
They're going to shut down more exchangers, I think they're a lot more.

In every article about this "$6 billion launder" press conferences, getting all of the big media, they basically say bitcoin it is used for the same illegal stuff. Implies, whoever is into bitcoins it will be investigated at some time, be found linked with some criminal, and arrested. This will simply keep away from bitcoin all of the institutional investors and companies, especially US ones. Much like they are out of porn, or more.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...onspiracy.html
"Digital currency, such as Bitcoin, was developed as a way to make anonymous transfers over the Internet. An undercover agent working for the U.S. established Liberty Reserve accounts under such false names such as ?Russia Hackers? and ?Joe Bogus,? who listed his address as ?123 Fake Main Street? in ?Completely Made Up City, New York.?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...238052256.html
"Virtual currencies, most notably bitcoin... it is just another giant, flashing warning light to bitcoin exchanges..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/1...ring-case.html
" The crackdown immediately sparked concerns that they may take aim at Bitcoin"

And putting bitcoin in the title:
US Busts Bitcoin-Like System Liberty Reserve in Costa Rica
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100769961

Even more aggressively:
Feds shut down payment network Liberty Reserve. Is Bitcoin next?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-bitcoin-next/

Up to write false statements already, journalists simply copy & paste with errors:
http://www.ibtimes.com/liberty-reser...dovsky-1281369
"?Joe Bogus? led to the arrest of five employees of Liberty Reserve, the multibillion-dollar bitcoin processor(!?!). The company converted currency to the electronic currency bitcoin (!?!?)"

[Captain Kawaii]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

200,000 US Liberty Reserve members...wonder which (if any) GFYers are affected by this (surprised not much attention on GFY considering the international impact of the story).



ADG

They're too busy freaking out and getting on planes for undisclosed destinations.

[AdultKing]

In Australia some Westpac accounts were frozen with between $35 million and $45 million in them.

The payment systems I would be watching next are:

UKash
Webmoney
Solid Trust Pay
EGO Pay
and
PerfectMoney

[tahiti]

Originally Posted by AdultKing

In Australia some Westpac accounts were frozen with between $35 million and $45 million in them.

The payment systems I would be watching next are:

UKash
Webmoney
Solid Trust Pay
EGO Pay
and
PerfectMoney

Not a single chance that US even try to touch Webmoney, pure Russian product.

[tahiti]

Originally Posted by FingerPrinter

Paypal not NEARLY as criminal you dimwitted ignorant fucking faggot

Oh yeah?

With paypal you can give money to the KKK but cannot to wikileaks, buy on most spam sites of fakes materials, viagra and child porn sites. Yeah of course it's not criminal at all.

Many people lost money doing legit business, and got raped (again) by international cownboys aka fedz.

SCREW PAYPAL.

[CAHEK]

I'm pretty sure those guys invested all their money into bitcoins and sitting in usb with password somewhere

[Ferus]

Originally Posted by grumpy

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/05/u-s-government-seizes-libertyreserve-com/

No one hurt?

I doubt anyone will admit using them in public.

[Matyko]

Originally Posted by tahiti

Oh yeah?

With paypal you can give money to the KKK but cannot to wikileaks, buy on most spam sites of fakes materials, viagra and child porn sites. Yeah of course it's not criminal at all.

Many people lost money doing legit business, and got raped (again) by international cownboys aka fedz.

SCREW PAYPAL.

+1 screw paypal!!!

[pimpmaster9000]

wow just like e-gold and 1mdc...

liberty reserve was, as far as e-currencies go, a pretty legit act....they made a "semi" effort of enforcing KYC regulations and what not...

bitcoins are sitting ducks...all the liberty reserve scammers will now migrate either back to webmoney or, considering how wide open bitcoins are, they will move to bitcoins...

[AdultKing]

Originally Posted by crucifissio

wow just like e-gold and 1mdc...

liberty reserve was, as far as e-currencies go, a pretty legit act....they made a "semi" effort of enforcing KYC regulations and what not...

They made no effort to enforce KYC regulations, on the contrary they went to significant lengths to ensure that they had as little information as possible about the nature of what their customers were doing.

Furthermore they created a fake set of accounts accessible to the Costa Rican authorities on the Liberty Reserve platform to attempt to get around financial tracking requirements.

[just a punk]

Originally Posted by FingerPrinter

Paypal not NEARLY as criminal you dimwitted ignorant fucking faggot

In fact it is. Perhaps even more...

[just a punk]

Originally Posted by tahiti

Not a single chance that US even try to touch Webmoney, pure Russian product.

Which is registered in offshore.

The main address for technical support is given in Moscow; the main proprietor and administrator is located in London.

[pimpmaster9000]

Originally Posted by AdultKing

They made no effort to enforce KYC regulations, on the contrary they went to significant lengths to ensure that they had as little information as possible about the nature of what their customers were doing.

Furthermore they created a fake set of accounts accessible to the Costa Rican authorities on the Liberty Reserve platform to attempt to get around financial tracking requirements.

well i did say they made a "semi" effort

LR used to be stricter when I used them years ago, but it was after e-gold got busted for the very same thing...

[- Jesus Christ -]

[AdultKing]

Anyone who is interested in understanding the depth of this investigation should watch the press conference

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/liber...1Dsq~yVmQ.html

and you can read the indictments and see some of the evidence here:

http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pres...lDocuments.php

[seeandsee]

they will strike BC one day also

[- Jesus Christ -]

You mad.

[lock]

reminds me of http://www.thewhitehouse.com

[lyno]

They just are not "to big to fail" and "to big to jail". Bay the way, that brought a smile to my face:

Police Officer Stabs Banker Who Sold Him Shares

[pimpmaster9000]

Originally Posted by AdultKing

Anyone who is interested in understanding the depth of this investigation should watch the press conference

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/liber...1Dsq~yVmQ.html

SO many lies and exaggerations.

I agree 100% that they broke the law but this guy is just making things up to suit his argument.

He calls all LR users criminals (200.000 in the USA alone), he claims LR was made purely for criminal purpouses, he claims ALL the transactions were criminal ect ect

I hate it when representatives of the "Free world" have to reduce themselves to this...sure LR was criminal BUT they should rise above this..

1.000.000 world wide users are not all criminals and they know it...

shame on the agents for resorting to this...

[AdultKing]

Originally Posted by crucifissio

SO many lies and exaggerations.

I agree 100% that they broke the law but this guy is just making things up to suit his argument.

He calls all LR users criminals (200.000 in the USA alone), he claims LR was made purely for criminal purpouses, he claims ALL the transactions were criminal

Criminality comes in many forms. I do believe that most LR transactions were related to criminal activity of one form or another.

If you look at the sheer number of illegal enterprises making use of LR you would see that a small proportion of its use was legitimate.

There are many thousands of illegal sites that used LR over the past few years. Some of the most pervasive were HYIP scams. Just spend some time looking at various dubious money making forums and you would be amazed at the sheer number of sites running such scams.

The there is forex Ponzi schemes, payments to file locker Uploaders, child porn websites, darknet sites offering card dumps, drugs, guns and so forth.

Out of the cited 55 million transactions it is likely that only a few million were legitimate honest uses of LR.

[adultmobile]

Originally Posted by AdultKing

The payment systems I would be watching next are:
UKash Webmoney Solid Trust Pay EGO Pay PerfectMoney

I agree except webmoney is backed by russians govt/mafia combo and stopped officially to deal with US citizens since a couple of months.

The US "financial police" is targeting the exchangers, this should not be understimated.. whoever exchanged LR for dollar it is investigated and tried to be shut down, some was shut down together with LR, others will soon, see those in pre-emptive hiding already:

http://www.goldexpay.com/
"The website is unavailable because of reorganization"

http://gold24hours.com/
"maintenance mode"

http://epay-bank.com/
"Website under updating construction, coming soon...... "

http://www.intexchange.com
"site reorganising"

I can see illegal sites moving to perfectmoney mostly (just checked some stolen credit card shops on tor), but perfectmoney stopped to work with US citizens this week (as pre-emptive defense), so it may be not optimal.
Now let USA formally target perfectmoney and/or egopay, then all of the exchangers who list perfectmoney and/or egopay will be targeted automatically, and so on.

In fact the real point it is the exchangers to/from dollar, from smallest to biggest, including who write in forum or chatroom one time personal deals "I have perfectmoney I buy paypal" or so. Not even the currency, since for bitcoins, litecoins, ripples and such, this is p2p as torrent so you can't seize or shutdown, it is all about exchangers from/to dollars existing or not.

[Fat Panda]

FUCK these CRIMINALS!

[pimpmaster9000]

Originally Posted by AdultKing

The there is forex Ponzi schemes, payments to file locker Uploaders, child porn websites, darknet sites offering card dumps, drugs, guns and so forth.

Out of the cited 55 million transactions it is likely that only a few million were legitimate honest uses of LR.

Yes I used to exchange back in the day, I know the ponzis and carders were 90% of the problems...id guess that 50% of the users are breaking the law in one way or another...ponzis are strait out gambling I do not consider them frauds, anybody who signs up for 20% per hour is an idiot period

but LR is also popular, or was popular, with 3rd world people like me, we have no access to paypal, most payment processors wont touch us simply because of location, "high-risk" processors are mostly scammy, and even local laws prevent us from doing any sort of out of country-banking or business, as things are not hard enough already...

technically speaking most 3rd world users are breaking some law but not with intent to launder money or commit a crime but to simply exercise their basic human right to make a living regardless of 1st world banking regulations and monopoly...

I agree most of the VOLUME was from ponzis and carders...file lockers are new so they should also play a role nowadays...LR was really a more decent act a few years back...

oh well...

[Klen]

Originally Posted by crucifissio

Yes I used to exchange back in the day, I know the ponzis and carders were 90% of the problems...id guess that 50% of the users are breaking the law in one way or another...ponzis are strait out gambling I do not consider them frauds, anybody who signs up for 20% per hour is an idiot period

but LR is also popular, or was popular, with 3rd world people like me, we have no access to paypal, most payment processors wont touch us simply because of location, "high-risk" processors are mostly scammy, and even local laws prevent us from doing any sort of out of country-banking or business, as things are not hard enough already...

technically speaking most 3rd world users are breaking some law but not with intent to launder money or commit a crime but to simply exercise their basic human right to make a living regardless of 1st world banking regulations and monopoly...

I agree most of the VOLUME was from ponzis and carders...file lockers are new so they should also play a role nowadays...LR was really a more decent act a few years back...

oh well...

Yeah i smoked around 1500$ in ponzi schemes,but i had a chance to make money if i didnt re-invested to same program.So that is a key to make money on it,invest into program,get earned money out,and re-invest it into new program,not into same.Still,some programs was alive for over a year.