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butthurt [soylentnews.org] writes:

After pleading guilty to money laundering, Arthur Budovsky has received the maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment, has been ordered to forfeit $122 million, and has been fined $500,000 by the U.S. district court for the Southern District of New York, in New York City's Manhattan borough. Mr. Budovsky is a co-founder, and is the owner, of the Costa Rica-based, electronic funds transfer service Liberty Reserve S.A. [wikipedia.org] After starting the company, Mr. Budovsky had renounced his U.S. citizenship and had become a citizen of Costa Rica.

Liberty Reserve was seized by the U.S. government and shut down in 2013; charges against it are pending. Defendants Vladimir Kats (co-founder of Liberty Reserve) and Azzeddine El Amine are scheduled to be sentenced by the same judge on 13 May. Two defendants are still at large. Two others, Maxim Chukharev and Mark Marmilev, were earlier sentenced to three years' and five years' imprisonment, respectively. The case is U.S. v. Kats et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-cr-00368.

coverage:

• Sky News [sky.com]
• The Hindu [thehindu.com]
• Bloomberg via The Business Times [businesstimes.com.sg]
• LawFuel [lawfuel.com]
• New York Post [nypost.com]
• TechWorm [techworm.net]
• KABC-AM [kabc.com]
• MoreLaw [morelaw.com]
• The Daily Star [dailystar.com.lb]
• Wall Street Journal [wsj.com]

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