Comments on: Liberty Reserve founder says he was arrested after refusing to provide source code to FBI

By: expatin paradise

expatin paradise — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 20:53:00 +0000

He should be stripped of his citizenship because it was based on fraud. The assumption of guilt is due to the fact that this man has already been convicted of other crimes in the US, his country of origin. He skipped to CR to avoid justice, entered into a sham marriage with a Tica to establish CR citizenship, and renounced his US citizenship so that he could avoid extradition. CR did tell him to cease and desist because he was not registered, so he moved his operations to other shell corporations. He has done everything to work around the law in multiple jurisdictions.

By: CRChris

CRChris — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 20:21:00 +0000

Your comment assumes that this man is guilty of criminal activity. I do not know of any country that strips its citizens of their citizenship if they are charged with a crime in another country or even found guilty of a crime in their own country. Costa Rican authorities have never said that he is not a Costa Rican citizen or have said that he is charged with any criminal activity here.

If the transferring or depositing of funds was related to Costa Rica and he was not registered with SUGEF then he may have some issues with Costa Rican banking laws. Until there are official charges to this affect then we must assume he was operating legally. Many operations that may be considerd illegal in the US, Canada, or the EU are not illegal in Costa Rica.

By: expatin paradise

expatin paradise — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 19:05:00 +0000

Costa Rica should revoke this man’s citizenship based on fraud and cooperate with the US in his prosecution. Budovsky has helped put Costa Rica on the map as an international tax haven and center for lawlessness. His latest claim that he sold his ownership interest in 2007 flies in the face of reason – why would he care about protecting the “proprietary” source code for the software used by Liberty Reserve unless he is the proprietor?

This case should be a cautionary tale for anyone trading in virtual currency. Several Bitcoin execs were just charged with money laundering yesterday. Closing their website will probably occur within hours, if it hasn’t already.