Liberty Reserve: Bank of the Underworld
According to Global Financial Integrity, a nonprofit that monitors international money laundering, Costa Rica exported $5.4 billion in laundered money in 2006, equivalent to 24 percent of its GDP. By 2012, that number was up to $21.6 billion—a whopping 48 percent of GDP.
.. Liberty Reserve did create a GAA, but it was hardly a model of transparency. In June 2010, one of Liberty Reserve’s tech experts sent an e-mail, in Russian, to several people in the company, including Budovsky, about how the GAA would work. The system would allow the Costa Rican government to “view a few statistics,” the e-mail said, but the “majority of these statistics are going to be fake.”
.. Prosecutors dismissed the idea that many legitimate businesses used Liberty Reserve. After the takedown, they noted, users were encouraged to contact the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan if they wanted their money back. According to prosecutors, only 35 people did so.