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Creator of Online Money Gets 20 Years in Prison (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes this report from CNN:
Before the virtual currency Bitcoin there was Liberty Reserve -- and its founder just got sentenced to 20 years in prison. Arthur Budovsky, 42, ran an online digital money business out of Costa Rica called Liberty Reserve. The U.S. government contended that the whole thing was just a massive, $6 billion money laundering operation. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote sentenced him to two decades in federal prison. She said Budovsky did not show "genuine remorse," according to the Department of Justice...
The U.S. government used the Patriot Act to go after this payment processor. The U.S. Treasury Department labeled it a money laundering organization, and cut it off from the American financial system. In 2013, American investigators took over the website and shut it down. In 2014, Budovsky and several coworkers were arrested in Spain. Then Budovsky was extradited to the United States to face trial for money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
The U.S. government used the Patriot Act to go after this payment processor. The U.S. Treasury Department labeled it a money laundering organization, and cut it off from the American financial system. In 2013, American investigators took over the website and shut it down. In 2014, Budovsky and several coworkers were arrested in Spain. Then Budovsky was extradited to the United States to face trial for money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
HSBC meanwhile, no-one held to account, no-one jailed etc, in fact the boss is now Minister of State for Trade and Investment. and the woman who was supposed to be over-seeing fraud is now Chairman [sic] of the BBC.
And they call Putin a criminal. The criminals are running our governments and our biggest companies.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
I remember this, and I remember thinking at the time that this guy was probably going to get in a shitload of trouble.
He was basically thumbing his nose at the government while playing fast and loose with the currency laws. He was soooooooooo sure that they couldn't touch him because he insisted that he "had the law on his side".
And he may well have, technically speaking, but he lost sight of the fact that "having the law on your side" has never stopped the government from jamming people up if they feel like it. And although it took a while, that's exactly what they did.
Quite a few people who were knowledgeable in currency matters at the time told everyone in no uncertain terms to "stay the hell away" from this guy's scheme, and it turns out that that was good advice.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The whole reason for the Russians putting missiles on Cuba was the US putting missiles into Turkey.
And lo and behold, the Russians removed their missiles from Cuba and the US removed them from Turkey. Guess it took a knife to the throat of the US to realize that it's not a comfortable feeling.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.