Digital cash arrests cause 'pain'

The takedown of the Liberty Reserve digital cash exchange has caused "pain" to criminals who used the facility, according to a leading security expert. Brian Krebs said he had seen comments on crime-linked restricted access forums suggesting many had suffered "steep losses". US prosecutors published an indictment against the site's staff on Tuesday. It says they deliberately helped users "distribute, store and launder the proceeds of their illegal activity". Coa Rica-based Liberty Reserve had essentially functioned as a "black market bank" which had "allegedly processed 55 million separate financial transactions, and laundered a staggering $6bn [£4bn] in criminal proceeds", said Preet Bharara, Attorney for the Southern District of New York, at a press conference. He added that about $25m had been seized following the arrest of Liberty Reserve's founder Arthur Budovsky in Madrid, Spain. Four others have also been arrested and at least a further two men are being sought. In addition, computer servers used by the firm in Costa Rica and Switzerland are being examined. According to the indictment, Liberty Reserve was estimated to have had "more than one million users worldwide", a fifth of whom were in the US. Police have raided businesses and homes linked to Liberty Reserve in Costa Rica However, since the site is accused of failing to verify its members' identities, it is unknown how many accounts were registered to identical individuals. "Short-term it will cause quite a bit of pain," Mr Krebs told the BBC. "If you're running a cybercrime operation and you lose half or three-quarters of your capital that can hurt and put a dent in your overall ability to perpetuate your business or whatever you are doing. "The medium to long-term impact is going to hinge largely on what law enforcement is able to glean from the data it has taken from Liberty Reserve. "It may lead them to be able to identify people who are ringleaders in cybercriminal activity. That said, it's very likely that information is heavily encrypted, and [based on the experience of other cases] the government is going to need the co-operation of the people they've arrested." Child abuse Troels Oerting, head of Europol's European Cybercrime Centre, added that EU police forces had also long been aware that criminals were making use of Liberty Reserve. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. //

Digital cash arrests cause 'pain' 2013-06-01T12:07:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: Undercover 999