Liberty Reserve was a Costa Rica-based centralized digital currency service that billed itself as the "oldest, safest and most popular payment processor, serving millions all around a world".

Prosecutors argued that due to lax security, alleged criminal activity largely went undetected, which ultimately led to them seizing the service.

"[4] Richard Weber, head of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service criminal investigation unit, declared, "If Al Capone were alive today, this is how he would be hiding his money".

[4] From 2002 to 2006, United States businessmen Arthur Budovsky and Vladimir Kats ran a digital currency exchange service known as Gold Age.

[2] A 2007 interview with Joul Lee, the company's marketing manager, claimed it was founded as "a private currency exchange system for import/export businesses" and opened to the public in 2007.

[3] Arthur Budovsky was arrested by Spanish police at Madrid's Barajas International Airport as he attempted to return to Costa Rica, where he had citizenship.

[3] The Liberty Reserve website was taken offline on May 24 and replaced with a notice saying the domain had been "seized by the United States Global Illicit Financial Team.

"[1][16] In Costa Rica, a court order was issued to seize the "financial products and services" of Budovsky, Maxim Chukharev, and the six apparent shell companies.

[2] Preet Bharara, a United States prosecutor working on the case called Liberty Reserve a "black market bank", created and structured to "facilitate criminal activity".

[3] In total, Liberty Reserve "processed an estimated 55 million separate financial transactions and is believed to have laundered more than $6 billion in criminal proceeds".

[3] Forty-five bank accounts were seized or restricted by the United States federal prosecutors under the Patriot Act as a result of the investigation.

[15][17] According to Internet security analyst Brian Krebs, the closure of Liberty Reserve had the potential to "cause a major upheaval in the cybercrime economy".

[9] In December 2014, chief technology officer Mark Marmilev was given the maximum sentence of five years after pleading guilty to operating an "unlicensed money transmitting business.