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News of payment processor Liberty Reserve’s indictment Tuesday should not have come as a great shock, especially to those who ran the outfit.
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The Wall Street Journal noted that three of the men behind Liberty Reserve - Arthur Budovsky, Azzeddine El Amine and Allan Esteban Hidalgo Jimenez — “began emptying Liberty Reserve’s bank accounts in Costa Rica of millions of dollars and transferring the money first to a bank account in Cyprus held in the name of a shell company controlled by Budovsky and El Amine, and then to a bank account in Russia held in the name of another shell company.”
Observers were quick to draw comparisons between Liberty Reserve and Bitcoin, arguably the most popular anonymous digital currency. For the most part, analysts were quick to point out that Bitcoin, despite much of the mystery surrounding it, has far more legitimacy. Bitcoin’s value did temporarily spike on news of Liberty Reserve’s demise.
Late Wednesday it was revealed by the Associated Press that the Costa Rican Government was probing whether Budovsky paid a local woman to marry him in an effort to gain citizenship in the Central American nation.
Deputy director of judicial investigations Gustavo Vega said officials were still investigating the 2010 marriage between millionaire Budovsky and a woman who local media identified only by her last names of Valerio Vargas.
The Costa Rican newspaper La Nacion said the woman has a food stand outside the government's immigration offices in the capital of San Jose.
The woman was quoted by the paper as saying Budovsky paid her $800 to marry him and promised they would get a divorce after two years. She said they are still married.
Budovsky denounced his US citizenship some years ago. Costa Rica does not have an extradition treaty with the US.
Liberty Reserve did not conduct business with any online casinos other than a site it appeared to have an interest in, The Liberty Reserve Casino.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
