U.S. Attorney in New York Indicts Digital Currency Company and 7 Persons for Money Laundering

On May 28, 2013, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara and several law enforcement officials announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Liberty Reserve S.A., a company that operated one of the world’s most widely used digital currency services, and seven of its principals and employees with money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.  Liberty Reserve allegedly has more than one million users worldwide, including more than 200,000 users in the U.S. who conducted approximately 55 million transactions, virtually all of which were illegal, and laundered more than $6 billion in suspected proceeds of crime, including credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, and narcotics trafficking.  U.S. officials believe the case is the largest international money laundering prosecution in history.[1]