Liberty Reserve Exchange Goes Offline After Owner Arrest

The website of Liberty Reserve, an exchange on which, among other things, cyber criminals would make anonymous payments among themselves, has been shut down after the suspected owner was arrested in Spain. In addition to Costa Rica, the US would also be involved in the action.

Media from Costa Rica report that 39-year-old Arthur Budovsky Belanchuk has been arrested in Spain following an international investigation into money laundering. This research would be conducted by Costa Rica and the United States. Belanchuk is said to be the founder and administrator of the Liberty Reserve website. Cyber ​​criminals, among other things, could make digital payments almost anonymously via the Liberty Reserve site; an email address is usually sufficient to open an account on the exchange.

In addition to the arrest, police in Costa Rica conducted searches at a number of the suspect’s businesses. In addition, Liberty Reserve has been taken off the air because the dns records of the .com domain have been changed. These now refer to dns servers from Shadowserver.org. The non-profit organization says it helps hosting companies and ISPs fight spam and botnets, but does not want to say anything about the matter yet.

The KrebsOnSecurity website reports that panic has arisen on various shady hacker forums, which are mainly used by cyber criminals. Some posters say they are afraid they have lost large amounts of money. In addition, the arrested Belanchuk would have been prosecuted in the United States in 2006 for money laundering. He is said to have run a site called GoldAge in 2002 that is said to be very similar to Liberty Reserve. More than $30 million was allegedly laundered. The man was convicted but received a suspended sentence.