The founder of Liberty Reserve has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for using his Costa Rica-based virtual currency business to help cyber criminals launder money, the U.S. Department of Justice reported.
A key defendant in the U.S. prosecution of the defunct digital currency company Liberty Reserve pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal charges of conspiracy and operating an illegal money remitting business, Reuters and Bloomberg reported yesterday.
Updated with comments from the U.S. Embassy, the Russian ambassador and Chukarev's parents. At 11:45 a.m. Costa Rican authorities escorted a handcuffed Maxim Chukharev on to a United flight 1081 bound for Newark, New Jersey. Chukharev, 27, will face trial in the United States along with four other co-defendants for his alleged role in what's considered largest money laundering scandal in history.
Arthur Budovsky is accused of being the "principal founder" of Liberty Reserve, a Costa Rica-based digital currency service alleged by the U.S. Justice Department to have laundered more than $6 billion for criminals.
MADRID – Arthur Budovsky, founder of the electronic payment platform Liberty Reserve, in a court appearance Monday denied committing any crimes and said he would fight U.S. efforts to extradite him from Spain. Spanish prosecutors, however, appeared in favor of granting the U.S. request.
U.S. prosecutors accuse 27-year-old Maxim Chukharev of helping build the biggest money laundering operation in history, Costa Rica-based online currency company Liberty Reserve. But Chukharev says he’s an innocent pawn in a high-stakes political drama.
The FBI asked the Costa Rican woman who married the online currency company's founder, Arthur Budovsky, to testify in a money laundering trial in the U.S.
President Laura Chinchilla on Friday denied claims by a Costa Rican woman who worked as an attorney for the biggest money-laundering operation in history and said she was an “advisor” in 2005 to Chinchilla, who was a lawmaker at the time.
Following the dismantling of what U.S. authorities called the biggest money laundering operation in history, Costa Rica and the U.S. acknowledged they need more tools to fight organized crime in the Central American country.
