January 30, 2015
Maxim Chukharev, former information technology manager for Liberty Reserve, a company that operated one of the world’s most widely used digital currency services, was sentenced to 36 months in prison for conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. According to the government, Liberty Reserve billed itself as the Internet’s “largest payment processor and money transfer system” but instead was created, structured and operated to help users conduct illegal transactions anonymously and launder the proceeds of their crimes. According to court records, before being shut down by the government in May 2013, Liberty Reserve conducted approximately 55 million transactions through its system totaling more than $6B in funds which encompassed suspected proceeds of credit card fraud, identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, narcotics trafficking and other crimes.DOJ
Tagged in: Money Laundering, Regulatory Violations, Securities Fraud,