Financial topics

[John]

Fascinating:


Treasury Identifies Virtual Currency Provider Liberty Reserve as a Financial Institution of Primary Money Laundering Concern under USA Patriot Act Section 311

5/28/2013

Action Targets Liberty Reserve, a Web-Based Money Transfer System Employed by Criminals Worldwide to Launder the Proceeds of Illicit Activities



WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today named Liberty Reserve S.A. as a financial institution of primary money laundering concern under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Section 311). Liberty Reserve - a web-based money transfer system or “virtual currency” - is specifically designed and frequently used to facilitate money laundering in cyber space. This is the first use of Section 311 authorities by Treasury against a virtual currency provider.

Liberty Reserve is widely used by criminals worldwide to store, transfer, and launder the proceeds of a variety of illicit activities. Liberty Reserve’s virtual currency has become a preferred method of payment on websites dedicated to the promotion and facilitation of illicit web based activity, including identity fraud, credit card theft, online scams, and dissemination of computer malware. It has sought to avoid regulatory scrutiny while tailoring its services to illicit actors.

Treasury’s regulatory action today was taken in coordination with the unsealing of an indictment by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which charged Liberty Reserve and seven of its principals – Arthur Budovsky, Vladimir Kats, Azzedine El Amine, Mark Marmilev, Maxim Chukharev, Ahmed Yassine Abdelghani, and Allan Esteban Hidalgo Jimenez – in Manhattan federal court for their alleged roles in running a $6 billion money laundering scheme and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.

“Treasury is determined to protect the U.S. financial system from cyber criminals and other malicious actors in cyberspace, including overseas entities like Liberty Reserve that facilitate online crime and hope to evade regulatory scrutiny,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen. “We are prepared to target and disrupt illicit financial activity wherever it occurs – domestically, at the far reaches of the globe or across the internet.”

Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has delivered to the Federal Register a regulatory finding explaining the basis of the actions as well as a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NPRM”) that, if adopted as a final rule, would prohibit covered U.S. financial institutions from opening or maintaining correspondent or payable-through accounts for foreign banks that are being used to process transactions involving Liberty Reserve. The NPRM also proposes to require covered financial institutions to apply special due diligence to their correspondent accounts maintained on behalf of foreign banks to guard against any transactions involving Liberty Reserve. If adopted, these measures would effectively cut off Liberty Reserve from the U.S. financial system. After publication in the Federal Register, the public will have 60 days to comment on the proposed rule against Liberty Reserve.



Liberty Reserve S.A.

Liberty Reserve is a web-based money transfer system or “virtual currency.” It is currently registered in Costa Rica and has been operating since 2001. Liberty Reserve uses a system of internal accounts and a network of third-party intermediaries or exchangers to move funds. Operating under the domain name “www.libertyreserve.com,” Liberty Reserve maintains accounts for registered users, which are funded through exchangers. Registered users typically send a bank or non-bank wire transfer to an exchanger, who then transfers the corresponding value of Liberty Reserve virtual currency from the exchanger’s account to the user’s account. Once an account is established, transfers can be made from account-to-account instantly and anonymously. Withdrawal of funds requires a user to instruct Liberty Reserve to send transfer value from the user’s account to the account of an exchanger, who then transfers the value as U.S. dollars or other currency as a bank or non-bank wire transfer to the user or to other recipient(s). Exchangers operate as independent money service businesses globally, charging a commission on each transfer of funds into or out of the Liberty Reserve currency.

Liberty Reserve’s virtual currency appeals to illicit users because it provides the capability to conduct anonymous transactions around the world. Liberty Reserve does not conduct verification of account registration for individuals using the system, asking only for a working e-mail address, and allow an individual to open unlimited number of accounts. By paying an additional “privacy fee,” users can hide their internal unique account number when sending funds within the Liberty Reserve system. Once an account is established, Liberty Reserve virtual currency can then be sent, instantly and anonymously, to any other account holder within the global system. For example, a cyber-criminal online marketplace would accept payment in Liberty Reserve transfers for illicit activity that included spam services and key-logging programs used to steal personal information, such as account numbers and passwords, from innocent victims. Also for anonymous sale were destructive malware programs designed to assault financial institutions, as well as lists of information from thousands of compromised personal accounts.



To view a Fact Sheet on Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act, visit this link​.
http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/Do ... 0Sheet.pdf

To view a chart related to this action, visit this link.
http://www.treasury.gov/Documents/How%2 ... 052813.pdf

To view the complete Findings against Liberty Reserve, visit this link.
http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/fil ... -Final.pdf

To view the Notice of Proposed Rulemakings, visit this link.
http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/fil ... -Final.pdf


http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/pr ... l1956.aspx

[vincecate]

Been watching Japanese bond yields go up and had not noticed that US Treasuries rates have been going up fast recently as well.

http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/bond-yield/

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates- ... -bonds/us/

[aedens]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-2 ... oar-record
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... per#p10696

[aedens]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-2 ... ubdued-now
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 380#p10720 <--- you will always deny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu-xFvLaE68

totalitarian political system masquerading as a religion

moderates understand confusion shelters corruption

Interstate relations are based on might rather than right. Through his study of the Peloponnesian War, a destructive war which began in 431 B.C. among Greek city-states, Thucydides observed that the strategic interaction of states followed a discernible and recurrent pattern.

Value is Ethics

Frédéric Bastiat : When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.
Some people like the sound of broken glass since they are very ill. aedens

[gerald]

G8 meeting in Ireland --- to show that things are getting better -- use the Potemkin village approach. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona ... %20village -- yea -- thats the ticket -- sarcasm

"Stickers applied to the windows of a former butcher’s shop in Belcoo, Co Fermanagh, give the premises the superficial appearance of a thriving business."

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/recessio ... -1.1409112

[aedens]

We have reservations about silver because of our concern about the potential 127-month cycle that we identified in the 1990s. Its next ideal low is in March 2014. Therefore we have not concentrated much analytic effort on the market.

http://www.vgtv.no/#!/video/65023/direk ... anbul-riot

Link came from a Turkish friend that mentioned it was said they have to use Norweigan TV to see anything about riots in their own country.

[John]

The Dow fell over 208 points today. Do you guys think that this the
start of "the big one" that ends the parabolic stock market bubble?

[aedens]

The Dow fell over 208 points today. Do you guys think that this the
start of "the big one" that ends the parabolic stock market bubble?

No, the IRStasi is just warming up and the poor baby crys as we noted very early on as kill switches.
They are to retarded and the MIC only needs the self licking ice cream cones employess to comply.
Walk around any plaza in Amerika and what do you see? Eisenhower wanted to do something but to remove
one leg of the chair with the actual issues of the day he could not. When they had a chance to build trust
NATO fucked that up just as they knew they would. The Western mind was raised in avarice and look what is real today.
Quo Bono was never a question was it "to whom to an advantage" . They will mirror the data now to another server and you
know that anyway. It was already in the cards from the first post here. The effective tax aggregate rate was ~20 percent per capita
and bumped 10 percent to 22 percent to pay for some who need it and the deviants who bankrupted us decades ago.
Like we conveyed the 47 percent who they politico curbed stomped are not all idiots since they pay hidden taxes
and now the mileage tax on transportation is being traced to the coruption it has been for decades. A. Taxpayer never
had a chance with this illness. Tick Tock on the rot and already noted the time window of speculation.
It was not our fault we seen it twenty years ago and some who are trying to clean it up are ten behind.

suis saluti fuit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO_WxYC34eM

[vincecate]

The Dow fell over 208 points today. Do you guys think that this the
start of "the big one" that ends the parabolic stock market bubble?

Yes!

However, I thought we were past the top a number of times before, so don't take too much stock in my opinion on this. It would make more sense to believe me that Japan was headed for hyperinflation.

I think a market that has been going up very regularly and has a big drop on Friday gets a lot of people thinking over the weekend. They think maybe they should sell some to lock in their profits. Monday could be worse, and then...

US Interest rates really seem to be going up fast. This is bad for stocks.
http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/bond-yield/

Hussman's argument that a log periodic fit to the S&P500 has to top out this month seemed reasonable to me.

logperiodic.gif (28.94 KiB) Viewed 4027 times

http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc130415.htm

[Carl Lieberman]

John, I don't think that this is the big one. The principle of maximum ruin will use this "correction" to sucker those on the sidelines into the maelstrom. I don't believe that it is knowable when the "big one" will happen. Nonetheless, my best bet is that this will follow the traditional model and collapse in the fall of the year after a Presidential election. Throw in the German elections in September. There just seems to be something about September and October. Lucky us.