Arthur Budovsky, Money Laundering, New York 2016

A 20-year prison sentence was handed down to Arthur Budovsky, the founder of Liberty Reserve, in a Manhattan federal court for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through his global digital currency business.

Budovsky, 42, was arrested in Spain in May 2013 and was extradited to the United States in October 2014.

Budovsky pled guilty to one count of conspiring to commit money laundering on January 29, 2016, three days before his trial was scheduled to begin.

According to the allegations contained in the Indictment filed against Liberty Reserve, Budovsky, and six other individual defendants, Budovsky's plea agreement, the evidence filed with the sentencing submissions for Budovsky, and statements made in related court filings and proceedings, Liberty Reserve S.A. ("Liberty Reserve") billed itself as the Internet's "largest payment processor and money transfer system" and operated one of the world's largest and most widely used digital currencies, which could be used to send and receive payments, via the Internet, to and from people all over the world.

Budovsky designed Liberty Reserve specifically to appeal to online criminals in order to capture their business. Among other things, Budovsky set up Liberty Reserve to have weak anti-money laundering ("AML") controls and allowed users to move money anonymously through Liberty Reserve's system, regardless of the volume or provenance of the funds.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara stated: "Liberty Reserve founder Arthur Budovsky ran a digital currency empire built expressly to facilitate money laundering on a massive scale for criminals around the globe."

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell stated: "The significant sentence handed down today shows that money laundering through the use of virtual currencies is still money laundering, and that online crime is still crime."

U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote imposed the 20-year sentence, noting that the defendant did not express any "genuine remorse," and that his crimes caused "widespread harm" and led to "countless victims of fraud around the world."

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/liberty-reserve-founder-arthur-budovsky-sentenced-manhattan-federal-court-20-years