Why American Express Wants to Kill Credit Cards

A report on BankInfoSecurity indicates Liberty Reserve, the virtual currency and money transfer service the fed recently seized, may have allowed the thieves who hacked the prepaid card accounts of RakBank and Bank of Muscat to launder some of the funds stolen in the ATM heist disclosed by federal prosecutors earlier this month.

Indictments in the largest online money laundering scheme in history were unsealed Tuesday, revealing that federal agents had seized the Web domain of libertyreserve.com, whose clientele included criminals of nearly every flavor, including fraudsters that targeted payments services and products.

The feds have taken a much keener interest in digital currencies and money transfer services recently, as indicated by the guidance from FinCEN released in March and the action against Mt. Gox, a Bitcoin exchange, early this month.

U.S. federal authorities have shut down a digital currency and payments service based in Costa Rica they claim was linked to the international $45 million ATM cash-out scheme that grabbed headlines earlier this month.

On May 28, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment filed against Liberty Reserve and seven of its principals and employees, including founder Arthur Budovsky, claiming the digital currency provider had laundered funds linked to December 2012 and February 2013 cash-out schemes. The company also has been accused of operating an unlicensed money-transfer business.

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