Federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against seven men who allegedly set up an Internet-based currency and used it to launder $6 billion in criminal proceeds, a sign of growing concern among law enforcement about digital cash, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Federal prosecutors have accused digital-currency company Liberty Reserve and its founder of running a $6 billion money-laundering operation that became a “bank of choice for the criminal underworld.” The case comes just months after officials warned that digital currency exchanges should follow traditional anti-money-laundering rules and less than two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security froze an account tied to one of the larger exchanges that handle trading in the fledgling digital currency bitcoin.
