Liberty Reserve is a company that allows users to apply for an account through the Internet by simply supplying a valid email address. Once a person signs up for an account, Liberty Reserve gives them a user name and an account number and they can start transferring money around the world, Costa Rican officials said.
They said the company shut its offices in Costa Rica in 2011. The website, however, had continued to operate, although it was offline Monday.
According to Costa Rica police, Budovsky was sentenced in 2007 to five years’ probation after pleading guilty in a New York court to charges he operated an illegal financial services business similar to Liberty Reserve.
U.S. authorities didn’t return phone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment Monday, which was the Memorial Day holiday in the United States.
Liberty Reserve’s origins are obscure, but it had grown into one of the criminal underworld’s best known electronic currency systems, used by hackers the world over to discreetly move large sums of money across borders, experts say.
Liberty Reserve, which conducted its transactions in dollars, euros and rubles, operates as an anonymous, no-questions-asked alternative to the global banking system, said Aditya Sood, a computer science doctoral candidate at Michigan State University who has studied the electronic currency.