Costa Rican arrested in Spain for alleged financial crimes
Posted: Friday, May 24, 2013 - By L. Arias
Costa Rican authorities raided suspect´s home and offices in San José and Heredia.
Arthur Budovsky Belanchuk, 39, on Friday was arrested in
Spain as part of a money laundering investigation performed jointly by
police agencies in the United States and Costa Rica.
Costa Rican prosecutor José Pablo González said Budovsky, a Costa Rican citizen of Ukrainian origin, has been under investigation since 2011 for money laundering using a company he created in the country called Liberty Reserve.
Local investigations began after a request from a prosecutor’s office in New York. On Friday, San José prosecutors conducted raids in Budovsky's house and offices in Escazá, Santa Ana, southwest of San José, and in the province of Heredia, north of the capital.
Budovsky's businesses in Costa Rica apparently were financed by using money from child pornography websites and drug trafficking.
They had transmitted at least $30 million to digital currency accounts worldwide since beginning operations in 2002.
The digital currency exchange, GoldAge, received and transmitted $4 million between Jan. 1, 2006, and June 30, 2006, as part of the money laundering scheme.
Customers opened online GoldAge accounts with limited documentation of identity, then GoldAge purchased digital gold currency through those accounts; the defendants' fees sometimes exceeded $100,000.
Customers could choose their method of payment to GoldAge: wire remittances, cash deposits, postal money orders or checks.
Finally, the customers could withdraw the money by requesting wire transfers to accounts anywhere in the world or by having checks sent to any identified individual.
Budovsky and Kats were sentenced to five years in prison for engaging in the business of transmitting money without a license, a felony violation of state banking law, but got probation.
Source : ww.ecommerce-journal.com/news/11437_lr
Until the moment when LibertyReserve started thinking of its publicity the only thing the users knew about LR was that the system operated long enough and that had already changed several offshore shelter. Probably when the company changes its headquarter it manages to leave all the balances and multi-level money laundries in each offshore however the system fails to get rid of the reputation gained by its founders and owners. For a long time they lived in the shadow and tried to stay unnoticed. However the Internet community started to show up LR in its true colors and very soon everybody could read online that when you work with libertyreserve you trust your money to the scammers that have already been charged with large scale fraud. Who pulls the strings of power and controls LR, what is the name of the person who can disappear with the money of LibertyReserve payment system, who was running a fraud structure dealing with money-laundering and today manages a payment system? We will try to answer all those questions and reduce the number of the question-marks surrounding LibertyReserve, a payment gateway designed for HYIPs.
Arthur Budovsky was arrested in New York in 2006 and charged with money laundering and unlicensed activity
Our investigation is based on the facts presented on various websites and actively discussed on the forums, and especially on the investigation of dgc.wetpaint.com. We have already written about the old interview with the owner of LibertyReserve. Probably that time he didn’t know what name to choose to introduce the owner of the system to the users. Ambitions or something else had made the immigrant from Ukraine, a country famous for the carder mob, to confess that it was he and one more person who had founded LibertyReserve.
Actually, Arthur Budovsky is person of little interest. He was born and brought up in Kiev (Ukraine), later he left the country for Germany and then for the USA. Arthur was building his business on the financial operations. And probably he could expand his activity unless his arrest. Arthur Budovsky was arrested in New York in 2006 and charged with money laundering and unlicensed activity.
However it was interesting to note that together with the owner of LibertyReserve police has arrested some Vladimir Kats, aka Ragnar Danneskjöld. (If you remember Ragnar Danneskjöld was a character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. And he was far from being a good boy. A true pirate, a robber with ideological principles, he was the opposite or negative of Robin Hood.) Probably it would be interesting for our readers to know that this name has already been mentioned before. Being more specific we can say that Ragnar Danneskjöld was the owner of PlanetGold.com and it was he who had interviewed Arthur Budovsky (http://web.archive.org/web/20030416025128/planetgold.com/interview.asp?SPID=08248138). Hence Arthur Budovsky was somehow connected with Vladimir Kats who had probably participated in creation of LR.
Those two young men acted very simply. Having launched and promoted GoldAge.net, one of the first large exchange services on the Internet, they have founded an offshore company in Panama and opened a bank account. Using those two tools those two friends conducted all kinds of the financial cashless operations.
The turnover was constantly growing, demand for load/unload of e-currencies was increasing and those two guys from Eastern Europe were becoming rich very fast. And certainly their abilities and experience couldn’t fail to develop into creation of LibertyReserve payment processor which had more functions and features comparing to e-gold. And the main thing is that it was designed especially for their business. However the USA is not the country where one could launder money and stay unnoticed for a long time. And as we have already said Arthur Budovsky and Vladimir Kats were arrested in 2006. By that time their exchanger had been working with such e-currencies as e-gold, e-Bullion, 1mdc, Liberty Reserve.
On July 27th, 2006 the New York County District Attorney's office announced the indictment of two alleged principals of Gold Age in Brooklyn, New York (for allegedly violating Article 13-B of New York State Banking Law) after a six month sting operation that began in January 2006. The two defendants, Arthur Budovsky and Vladimir Kats are currently represented by attorney Igor Niman.
The company has changed its address 4 times during 5 years
Article 13-B of the New York banking law states that it is a felony to transfer money without a license if one knowingly transmits $250,000 or more in a year from a single client in a year; $25,000 or more in 30 days; and $10,000 or more in a single transition. *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Age
Many businesses and one den of the scammers
And though Budovsky and Kats were arrested in 2006 the address of the financial laundry GoldAge.net has also been specified in contact details of Liberty Reserve.
A variety of LR’s headquarters really amazes: New York (2106 Bath Avenue, Suite #101
Brooklyn, NY 11214 USA), Nevada, Nevis, and finally Panama. The company has changed its address 4 times during 5 years, why? The answer is evident: the company owner’s didn’t want to be jailed. By the way, the full address in New York is not just a fortuity. And we recommend you to remember it.
In January 2007 the company removed all the addresses including the mailing ones and left only a contact form and the following phone number 917 331-9604 which appeared to have a New York City area. A quick check in Google has lead to web site AboutUs.com showing this phone number and the following address:
James Bell
+1 917-690-8126
PO Box 940538
Rockaway Park NY 11694 US
CNAM entries, Reverse Phone search Area Code :917
Exchange : 690
City : NWYRCYZN01
State : NY
NY - NEW YORK (NWYRCYZN01)NY - NEW YORK (NWYRCYZN01)646-459-8436 dial up local assess number
http://www.aboutus.org/LibertyReserve.com
James Bell, who is he? The search has returned us to the far 2002 when Ragnar Danneskjold has interviewed James Bell who appeared to be new CEO of Gold-Age.com who had bought that business from its former owner Parker Bradley. (http://www.planetgold.com/interview.asp?SPID=91334475). However it is impossible to view this page at the moment as the link is dead.
Here is just a part of the interview:
The sale and re-birth of Gold-Age
Monday, April 22, 2002 Interview with Gold-Age.com new CEO, James Bell, and former CEO, Parker Bradley, conducted by Ragnar Danneskjold, editor - Planetgold.com.
planetgold: Today, Planetgold is pleased to interview James Bell, of Gold-Age (www.Gold-Age.net)
planetgold: The three of us are sitting here, in Albany. This is a closing for the sale of Gold-Age. Welcome, James and Parker. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed.
James: It's my pleasure!
Parker: Same here.
planetgold: So what's the deal here with Gold-Age?
James: I am acquiring Gold-Age from Parker Bradley. Thank you for bringing us together and brokering the arrange
One more interesting finding: the AboutUs.com wiki also contains the same Liberty Reserve/Gold-Age.net contact number for Asianagold ( http://www.asianagold.com/ ) with Anthony Hawkins as a contact person. Asianagold is an exchanger exchanging e-gold, Pecunix, Liberty Reserve, e-Bullion, 1mdc, and WebMoney. Don’t you find this list a little bit familiar?
In October 2007 LibertyReserve came with new address in Costa Rica and new management. May be the management didn’t changed however the names charged for sure: Mr. Joul Lee, Marketing Manager and Eric Paltz, founder of LibertyReserve. By the way the last name is present on the site today.
However, there were some companies that had an interesting connection with LibertyReserve. One of them is LibertyImpact newsletter operated by Vlad aka Ragnar, with direct links to GoldAge and LibertyReserve. Please pay attention to the address: 2106 Bath Avenue
Starting from 2003GoldAge has also the same address: 2106 Bath Avenue.
In 2005 the Internet community is introduced to the Cambist.net web site. Try to guess what address is specified? Bingo! Again: 2106 Bath Avenue Address in Brooklyn.
A popular address one may say? No the answer is simpler: the same owners.
In the press release from the Manhattan District Attorney's office, July 27th, 2006 regarding the arrests of the GoldAge operators, http://manhattanda.org/whatsnew/press/2006-07-27.shtml
DISTRICT ATTORNEY - NEW YORK COUNTY News Release
July 27, 2006 Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced today the indictment of two people on charges of operating an illegal money transmittal business. Eight subsidiary businesses operated by the defendants have also been indicted. The defendants are ARTHUR BUDOVSKY and VLADIMIR KATS. The defendants’ illegal money transmittal business is GOLDAGE INC. Also indicted today are other companies operated by BUDOVSKY and KATS: GOLDAGE HOLDING INC., ECSN INC., EXECUTIVE COMMERCIAL SERVICES INC., INTERNETWORK MANAGEMENT INC., GGN INC., B TO B MARKETPLACE INC. and MGA INTERNATIONAL INC. The defendants operated out of their Brooklyn apartments.
Both defendants addresses were listed:
Arthur Budovsky:
DOB: 10/24/1973
Address: 118 Battery Avenue, Suite 4B,
Brooklyn, New York 11209
Vladimir Kats:
DOB: 01/04/1972
Address: 40 Oceana Drive West, Unit 4B
Brooklyn, NY 11235
If you plug ALL of these above mentioned addresses into any Map software on the Internet, you find they are all just a few miles apart.
(A) 7400 Shore Front Pkwy Arverne, NY 11693 --FastGold, B to B Marketplace
(
2106 Bath Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11214--GoldAge, LibertyReserve, GDCAonline.org, Cambist, Asianagold
© Vladimir Kats home apt. address: 40 Oceana Drive West, Unit 4B, Brooklyn, NY 11235
(D) Arthur Budovsky home apt. address: 118 Battery Avenue, Suite 4B, Brooklyn, New York 11209
These two shots came from a finance.e-gold forum January of 2005. Message 42 and 55,
http://osdir.com/ml/finance.*****er/20...1/msg00042.html
http://osdir.com/ml/finance.*****er/20...1/msg00055.html
(J Murray Wrote)
I recently contacted John Kyle of cambist.net in order to purchase e-gold. I received an email from John with instructions to make the payment out to "B-To-B MarketPlace Inc." and mail to:
B-to-B MarketPlace Inc
7400 Shore Front Pkwy #2E
Arverne, NY 11692
I mailed the money order USPS Prioirty Mail on 12/30/05 and it arrived on 1/3/05. Since then I have left voice messages and emailed John Kyle with no response. Has anyone here had dealings with cambist.net or B-To-B MarketPlace Inc?
(Ragnar Wrote in response)
So, how much are you paying to buy $22.00 worth of e-gold that you want a dedicated team of professionals waiting on you hand and foot?
=====
Regards,
Ragnar
Gold Age - http://www.goldage.net
GDCA - http://www.gdcaonline.org
Shop anywhere with e-gold - http://www.goldstores.com
Liberty Impact - http://www.libertyimpact.com
Also we should mention Global Digital Currency Association (GDCA: http://www.gdcaonline.org). It was a trade association of electronic money operators, digital currency exchangers, merchants and users that became inaccessible a month ago. The site of the company had a list of the businesses and associations which were listed according to the rank assigned by GDCA. Behind this site one could also see the same Budovsky and Kats as the same address was specified:
2106 Bath Avenue, Suite #101
Brooklyn, NY 11214 USA
We should give proper respect to Arthur Budovsky and his team as it was a very wise fraudulent idea to create a site which would rank e-currency exchangers and accredit them. They could simply put the necessary mark and to throw the rivals away. However, it seems that the last publicity policy of LibertyReserve and the crisis on the market of exchange services have made the owners of the system to refuse that site to avoid any suspicions.
So, it appears that LibertyReserve payment system that has finally started thinking of its publicity in order not sink in rumors, talks is just a product of several scammers that had already practiced money laundering and paid for it. Probably today Arthur Budovsky wants to mend his ways however who will trust him? Who will believe the person who had built his business on the dirty money, using some loopholes in bank laws? And finally where is a guaranty that a man who has deceived the government would not deceive the customers? Any event is possible. However the possibility becomes 100 times stronger if the crime has been committed once. Having read this article every reader will make his or her own decision however we think that it is our duty to warn you. It is important as if one day we wake up and see that LibertyReserve is not available not only the clients but hundreds of businesses, exchangers and the greater part of the Internet infrastructure will suffer. And it is impermissible!
You are probably using Libertyreserve as e-currency. We will explain you why your money is AT RISK and why you should remove your funds from this system run by a team of international scammmers.
WHO MANAGE LIBERTYRESERVE
* As told on their website, the President of Liberty Reseve is supposed to be "Amed Mekovar". Some research in Costa Rica through our contacts in various administrations show that Amed Mekovar is in fact Ahmed Yassin, citizen of Morocco, living in Costa Rica with a residency permit. Interesting to know that this one is prosecuted in Morocco for many scams, and is even under investigation in Costa Rica per request of the US authorities.
So the President of Liberty Reserve is a fugitive from Morocco, using a false name! The real founder and owner is the sadly famous "Ragnar", well know crook in the e-currency world. He runs a few websites, including the former goldage.net (sold to other people), the GDCA service that is supposed offer assistance to victims of scams (!) and that curiously went back online some days ago after a few months downtime! GDCA will be a support for Liberty Reserve, as more and more people begin to understand that LR is just a scam, made by scam artists.
Find more about this one and his good friend, also one of the executives of Liberty Reserve here: http://manhattanda.org/whatsnew/press/2006-07-27.shtml
HOW LIBERTYRESERVE OWNERS SPEND YOUR MONEY
Have a look at http://www.savefile.com/files/2063446 and http://www.savefile.com/files/2063913 and http://www.savefile.com/files/2063915 and see how Libertyreserve scammers spend YOUR money. A nice 4x4 jeep Mercedes. That is only ONE of their last purchases. We will show you soon how they also bought a property by the see for $470,000, and 2 other very nice cars.
This is all paid with YOUR money that is in the Libertyreserve system, and that explains why a few days ago, Libertyreserve ordered all exchangers to not accept outexchanges above $5000 without the Libertyreserve agreement!
HOW LIBERTYRESERVE IS STEALING YOUR MONEY
If you have only 100 or 200 bucks, no problem. But if you have larger amounts, be VERY careful: Some days ago, a "confidential" email from Erik Paltz, CEO of Libertyreserve, told all exchangers that any OUT exchange from $5000 must NOT be executed without the agreement of Libertyreserve. This is done to lock the money inside the system, like e-gold: There are million dollars in e-gold currently BUT nobody can withdraw them outside the e-gold system. Libertyreserve is doing the same: You can SEE your money on the screen BUT if you want to withdraw $5000 or more, you will have to wait the "Libertyreserve agreement. Some LR users are waiting this agreement since... SEVEN DAYS already!! Exchangers hold the money, and say "Sorry guys, Libertyreserve does not authorize us yet to pay you, please wait".
One of the largest exchanger last month wanted to sell $200,000 LR to Libertyreserve themselves. He had to wait TEN DAYS for Libertyreserve finally sent the payment.
THE "SECURITY" OF LIBERTYRESERVE
Last month, in March 2009, the Libertyreserve website went offline during more than one week. The official explanation was a "SSL certificate update". One week... The real reason was that the API system of Libertyreserve had a major security hole that allowed hackers to steal hundreds of thousands USD. Look here: http://www.savefile.com/files/2025881 and here http://www.savefile.com/files/2024516 to see 2 of the victimes accounts after the hack. Libertyreserve NEVER replied to ANY email of these victims asking at least explanations.
One big exchanger also was stolen about $40.000, and as they didn't agree to shut-up and hide this hack, the only reply of Libertyreserve to them was to revoke their exchanger status.
You can read a lot about this story here: http://ecommerce-journal.com/articles/13629_libertyreserve_is_down_for_maintenance_users_are_in_panic_whats_going_on
THE FUTURE OF LIBERTYRESERVE
There are currently two legal actions in Costarica against Libertyreserve. The fact that the Libertyreserve manager and president are fugitive, using false identity, gives NO DOUBT about the result: The Costa Rica Court will terminate the Libertyreserve company and, if they have not run away yet, the Libertyreserve management team will be arrested. The result will then be the same than for e-bullion: MILLIONS OF DOLLARS LOST.
The "market" perfectly knows it: The out-exchange rates that were about 2% to 3% last month, went up to 20% to 25% during the "API hack period" and are now at a high 5% to 8%.
All this means that YES, YOU have Libertyreserve in your account but it is less and less possible to sell it for other e-currency or for real money. All this is going to be worse and worse until the Libertyreserve scam collapses, and that the Libertyreserve owners do the only thing they are able to do: RUN AWAY WITH YOUR MONEY, AS ALL SCAMMERS DO.
Of course Libertyreserve tries to hide the truth, by paying guys to post on various forum. One exchanger even claims to visit LR regularly in Costa Rica. In fact he made an agreement so that he will put all his "moral authority" to make LR users confident, in exchange of the guarantee that HE will not be scammed when the Libertyreserve scammers will run away with your money.
You, and only YOU, know what you have to do: Get rid of Libertyreserve BEFORE Libertyreserve scams you!
Costa Rican prosecutor José Pablo González said Budovsky, a Costa Rican citizen of Ukrainian origin, has been under investigation since 2011 for money laundering using a company he created in the country called Liberty Reserve.
Local investigations began after a request from a prosecutor’s office in New York. On Friday, San José prosecutors conducted raids in Budovsky's house and offices in Escazá, Santa Ana, southwest of San José, and in the province of Heredia, north of the capital.
Budovsky's businesses in Costa Rica apparently were financed by using money from child pornography websites and drug trafficking.
New York conviction
According
to records from the U.S. Justice Department, on July 27, 2006, Budovsky
and a partner identified as Vladimir Kats were indicted by the state of
New York on charges of operating an illegal financial business, GoldAge
Inc., from their Brooklyn apartments.They had transmitted at least $30 million to digital currency accounts worldwide since beginning operations in 2002.
The digital currency exchange, GoldAge, received and transmitted $4 million between Jan. 1, 2006, and June 30, 2006, as part of the money laundering scheme.
Customers opened online GoldAge accounts with limited documentation of identity, then GoldAge purchased digital gold currency through those accounts; the defendants' fees sometimes exceeded $100,000.
Customers could choose their method of payment to GoldAge: wire remittances, cash deposits, postal money orders or checks.
Finally, the customers could withdraw the money by requesting wire transfers to accounts anywhere in the world or by having checks sent to any identified individual.
Budovsky and Kats were sentenced to five years in prison for engaging in the business of transmitting money without a license, a felony violation of state banking law, but got probation.
Source : ww.ecommerce-journal.com/news/11437_lr
Until the moment when LibertyReserve started thinking of its publicity the only thing the users knew about LR was that the system operated long enough and that had already changed several offshore shelter. Probably when the company changes its headquarter it manages to leave all the balances and multi-level money laundries in each offshore however the system fails to get rid of the reputation gained by its founders and owners. For a long time they lived in the shadow and tried to stay unnoticed. However the Internet community started to show up LR in its true colors and very soon everybody could read online that when you work with libertyreserve you trust your money to the scammers that have already been charged with large scale fraud. Who pulls the strings of power and controls LR, what is the name of the person who can disappear with the money of LibertyReserve payment system, who was running a fraud structure dealing with money-laundering and today manages a payment system? We will try to answer all those questions and reduce the number of the question-marks surrounding LibertyReserve, a payment gateway designed for HYIPs.
Arthur Budovsky was arrested in New York in 2006 and charged with money laundering and unlicensed activity
Our investigation is based on the facts presented on various websites and actively discussed on the forums, and especially on the investigation of dgc.wetpaint.com. We have already written about the old interview with the owner of LibertyReserve. Probably that time he didn’t know what name to choose to introduce the owner of the system to the users. Ambitions or something else had made the immigrant from Ukraine, a country famous for the carder mob, to confess that it was he and one more person who had founded LibertyReserve.
Actually, Arthur Budovsky is person of little interest. He was born and brought up in Kiev (Ukraine), later he left the country for Germany and then for the USA. Arthur was building his business on the financial operations. And probably he could expand his activity unless his arrest. Arthur Budovsky was arrested in New York in 2006 and charged with money laundering and unlicensed activity.
However it was interesting to note that together with the owner of LibertyReserve police has arrested some Vladimir Kats, aka Ragnar Danneskjöld. (If you remember Ragnar Danneskjöld was a character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. And he was far from being a good boy. A true pirate, a robber with ideological principles, he was the opposite or negative of Robin Hood.) Probably it would be interesting for our readers to know that this name has already been mentioned before. Being more specific we can say that Ragnar Danneskjöld was the owner of PlanetGold.com and it was he who had interviewed Arthur Budovsky (http://web.archive.org/web/20030416025128/planetgold.com/interview.asp?SPID=08248138). Hence Arthur Budovsky was somehow connected with Vladimir Kats who had probably participated in creation of LR.
Those two young men acted very simply. Having launched and promoted GoldAge.net, one of the first large exchange services on the Internet, they have founded an offshore company in Panama and opened a bank account. Using those two tools those two friends conducted all kinds of the financial cashless operations.
The turnover was constantly growing, demand for load/unload of e-currencies was increasing and those two guys from Eastern Europe were becoming rich very fast. And certainly their abilities and experience couldn’t fail to develop into creation of LibertyReserve payment processor which had more functions and features comparing to e-gold. And the main thing is that it was designed especially for their business. However the USA is not the country where one could launder money and stay unnoticed for a long time. And as we have already said Arthur Budovsky and Vladimir Kats were arrested in 2006. By that time their exchanger had been working with such e-currencies as e-gold, e-Bullion, 1mdc, Liberty Reserve.
On July 27th, 2006 the New York County District Attorney's office announced the indictment of two alleged principals of Gold Age in Brooklyn, New York (for allegedly violating Article 13-B of New York State Banking Law) after a six month sting operation that began in January 2006. The two defendants, Arthur Budovsky and Vladimir Kats are currently represented by attorney Igor Niman.
The company has changed its address 4 times during 5 years
Article 13-B of the New York banking law states that it is a felony to transfer money without a license if one knowingly transmits $250,000 or more in a year from a single client in a year; $25,000 or more in 30 days; and $10,000 or more in a single transition. *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Age
Many businesses and one den of the scammers
And though Budovsky and Kats were arrested in 2006 the address of the financial laundry GoldAge.net has also been specified in contact details of Liberty Reserve.
A variety of LR’s headquarters really amazes: New York (2106 Bath Avenue, Suite #101
Brooklyn, NY 11214 USA), Nevada, Nevis, and finally Panama. The company has changed its address 4 times during 5 years, why? The answer is evident: the company owner’s didn’t want to be jailed. By the way, the full address in New York is not just a fortuity. And we recommend you to remember it.
In January 2007 the company removed all the addresses including the mailing ones and left only a contact form and the following phone number 917 331-9604 which appeared to have a New York City area. A quick check in Google has lead to web site AboutUs.com showing this phone number and the following address:
James Bell
+1 917-690-8126
PO Box 940538
Rockaway Park NY 11694 US
CNAM entries, Reverse Phone search Area Code :917
Exchange : 690
City : NWYRCYZN01
State : NY
NY - NEW YORK (NWYRCYZN01)NY - NEW YORK (NWYRCYZN01)646-459-8436 dial up local assess number
http://www.aboutus.org/LibertyReserve.com
James Bell, who is he? The search has returned us to the far 2002 when Ragnar Danneskjold has interviewed James Bell who appeared to be new CEO of Gold-Age.com who had bought that business from its former owner Parker Bradley. (http://www.planetgold.com/interview.asp?SPID=91334475). However it is impossible to view this page at the moment as the link is dead.
Here is just a part of the interview:
The sale and re-birth of Gold-Age
Monday, April 22, 2002 Interview with Gold-Age.com new CEO, James Bell, and former CEO, Parker Bradley, conducted by Ragnar Danneskjold, editor - Planetgold.com.
planetgold: Today, Planetgold is pleased to interview James Bell, of Gold-Age (www.Gold-Age.net)
planetgold: The three of us are sitting here, in Albany. This is a closing for the sale of Gold-Age. Welcome, James and Parker. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed.
James: It's my pleasure!
Parker: Same here.
planetgold: So what's the deal here with Gold-Age?
James: I am acquiring Gold-Age from Parker Bradley. Thank you for bringing us together and brokering the arrange
One more interesting finding: the AboutUs.com wiki also contains the same Liberty Reserve/Gold-Age.net contact number for Asianagold ( http://www.asianagold.com/ ) with Anthony Hawkins as a contact person. Asianagold is an exchanger exchanging e-gold, Pecunix, Liberty Reserve, e-Bullion, 1mdc, and WebMoney. Don’t you find this list a little bit familiar?
In October 2007 LibertyReserve came with new address in Costa Rica and new management. May be the management didn’t changed however the names charged for sure: Mr. Joul Lee, Marketing Manager and Eric Paltz, founder of LibertyReserve. By the way the last name is present on the site today.
However, there were some companies that had an interesting connection with LibertyReserve. One of them is LibertyImpact newsletter operated by Vlad aka Ragnar, with direct links to GoldAge and LibertyReserve. Please pay attention to the address: 2106 Bath Avenue
Starting from 2003GoldAge has also the same address: 2106 Bath Avenue.
In 2005 the Internet community is introduced to the Cambist.net web site. Try to guess what address is specified? Bingo! Again: 2106 Bath Avenue Address in Brooklyn.
A popular address one may say? No the answer is simpler: the same owners.
In the press release from the Manhattan District Attorney's office, July 27th, 2006 regarding the arrests of the GoldAge operators, http://manhattanda.org/whatsnew/press/2006-07-27.shtml
DISTRICT ATTORNEY - NEW YORK COUNTY News Release
July 27, 2006 Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau announced today the indictment of two people on charges of operating an illegal money transmittal business. Eight subsidiary businesses operated by the defendants have also been indicted. The defendants are ARTHUR BUDOVSKY and VLADIMIR KATS. The defendants’ illegal money transmittal business is GOLDAGE INC. Also indicted today are other companies operated by BUDOVSKY and KATS: GOLDAGE HOLDING INC., ECSN INC., EXECUTIVE COMMERCIAL SERVICES INC., INTERNETWORK MANAGEMENT INC., GGN INC., B TO B MARKETPLACE INC. and MGA INTERNATIONAL INC. The defendants operated out of their Brooklyn apartments.
Both defendants addresses were listed:
Arthur Budovsky:
DOB: 10/24/1973
Address: 118 Battery Avenue, Suite 4B,
Brooklyn, New York 11209
Vladimir Kats:
DOB: 01/04/1972
Address: 40 Oceana Drive West, Unit 4B
Brooklyn, NY 11235
If you plug ALL of these above mentioned addresses into any Map software on the Internet, you find they are all just a few miles apart.
(A) 7400 Shore Front Pkwy Arverne, NY 11693 --FastGold, B to B Marketplace
(
2106 Bath Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11214--GoldAge, LibertyReserve, GDCAonline.org, Cambist, Asianagold© Vladimir Kats home apt. address: 40 Oceana Drive West, Unit 4B, Brooklyn, NY 11235
(D) Arthur Budovsky home apt. address: 118 Battery Avenue, Suite 4B, Brooklyn, New York 11209
These two shots came from a finance.e-gold forum January of 2005. Message 42 and 55,
http://osdir.com/ml/finance.*****er/20...1/msg00042.html
http://osdir.com/ml/finance.*****er/20...1/msg00055.html
(J Murray Wrote)
I recently contacted John Kyle of cambist.net in order to purchase e-gold. I received an email from John with instructions to make the payment out to "B-To-B MarketPlace Inc." and mail to:
B-to-B MarketPlace Inc
7400 Shore Front Pkwy #2E
Arverne, NY 11692
I mailed the money order USPS Prioirty Mail on 12/30/05 and it arrived on 1/3/05. Since then I have left voice messages and emailed John Kyle with no response. Has anyone here had dealings with cambist.net or B-To-B MarketPlace Inc?
(Ragnar Wrote in response)
So, how much are you paying to buy $22.00 worth of e-gold that you want a dedicated team of professionals waiting on you hand and foot?
=====
Regards,
Ragnar
Gold Age - http://www.goldage.net
GDCA - http://www.gdcaonline.org
Shop anywhere with e-gold - http://www.goldstores.com
Liberty Impact - http://www.libertyimpact.com
Also we should mention Global Digital Currency Association (GDCA: http://www.gdcaonline.org). It was a trade association of electronic money operators, digital currency exchangers, merchants and users that became inaccessible a month ago. The site of the company had a list of the businesses and associations which were listed according to the rank assigned by GDCA. Behind this site one could also see the same Budovsky and Kats as the same address was specified:
2106 Bath Avenue, Suite #101
Brooklyn, NY 11214 USA
We should give proper respect to Arthur Budovsky and his team as it was a very wise fraudulent idea to create a site which would rank e-currency exchangers and accredit them. They could simply put the necessary mark and to throw the rivals away. However, it seems that the last publicity policy of LibertyReserve and the crisis on the market of exchange services have made the owners of the system to refuse that site to avoid any suspicions.
So, it appears that LibertyReserve payment system that has finally started thinking of its publicity in order not sink in rumors, talks is just a product of several scammers that had already practiced money laundering and paid for it. Probably today Arthur Budovsky wants to mend his ways however who will trust him? Who will believe the person who had built his business on the dirty money, using some loopholes in bank laws? And finally where is a guaranty that a man who has deceived the government would not deceive the customers? Any event is possible. However the possibility becomes 100 times stronger if the crime has been committed once. Having read this article every reader will make his or her own decision however we think that it is our duty to warn you. It is important as if one day we wake up and see that LibertyReserve is not available not only the clients but hundreds of businesses, exchangers and the greater part of the Internet infrastructure will suffer. And it is impermissible!
You are probably using Libertyreserve as e-currency. We will explain you why your money is AT RISK and why you should remove your funds from this system run by a team of international scammmers.
WHO MANAGE LIBERTYRESERVE
* As told on their website, the President of Liberty Reseve is supposed to be "Amed Mekovar". Some research in Costa Rica through our contacts in various administrations show that Amed Mekovar is in fact Ahmed Yassin, citizen of Morocco, living in Costa Rica with a residency permit. Interesting to know that this one is prosecuted in Morocco for many scams, and is even under investigation in Costa Rica per request of the US authorities.
So the President of Liberty Reserve is a fugitive from Morocco, using a false name! The real founder and owner is the sadly famous "Ragnar", well know crook in the e-currency world. He runs a few websites, including the former goldage.net (sold to other people), the GDCA service that is supposed offer assistance to victims of scams (!) and that curiously went back online some days ago after a few months downtime! GDCA will be a support for Liberty Reserve, as more and more people begin to understand that LR is just a scam, made by scam artists.
Find more about this one and his good friend, also one of the executives of Liberty Reserve here: http://manhattanda.org/whatsnew/press/2006-07-27.shtml
HOW LIBERTYRESERVE OWNERS SPEND YOUR MONEY
Have a look at http://www.savefile.com/files/2063446 and http://www.savefile.com/files/2063913 and http://www.savefile.com/files/2063915 and see how Libertyreserve scammers spend YOUR money. A nice 4x4 jeep Mercedes. That is only ONE of their last purchases. We will show you soon how they also bought a property by the see for $470,000, and 2 other very nice cars.
This is all paid with YOUR money that is in the Libertyreserve system, and that explains why a few days ago, Libertyreserve ordered all exchangers to not accept outexchanges above $5000 without the Libertyreserve agreement!
HOW LIBERTYRESERVE IS STEALING YOUR MONEY
If you have only 100 or 200 bucks, no problem. But if you have larger amounts, be VERY careful: Some days ago, a "confidential" email from Erik Paltz, CEO of Libertyreserve, told all exchangers that any OUT exchange from $5000 must NOT be executed without the agreement of Libertyreserve. This is done to lock the money inside the system, like e-gold: There are million dollars in e-gold currently BUT nobody can withdraw them outside the e-gold system. Libertyreserve is doing the same: You can SEE your money on the screen BUT if you want to withdraw $5000 or more, you will have to wait the "Libertyreserve agreement. Some LR users are waiting this agreement since... SEVEN DAYS already!! Exchangers hold the money, and say "Sorry guys, Libertyreserve does not authorize us yet to pay you, please wait".
One of the largest exchanger last month wanted to sell $200,000 LR to Libertyreserve themselves. He had to wait TEN DAYS for Libertyreserve finally sent the payment.
THE "SECURITY" OF LIBERTYRESERVE
Last month, in March 2009, the Libertyreserve website went offline during more than one week. The official explanation was a "SSL certificate update". One week... The real reason was that the API system of Libertyreserve had a major security hole that allowed hackers to steal hundreds of thousands USD. Look here: http://www.savefile.com/files/2025881 and here http://www.savefile.com/files/2024516 to see 2 of the victimes accounts after the hack. Libertyreserve NEVER replied to ANY email of these victims asking at least explanations.
One big exchanger also was stolen about $40.000, and as they didn't agree to shut-up and hide this hack, the only reply of Libertyreserve to them was to revoke their exchanger status.
You can read a lot about this story here: http://ecommerce-journal.com/articles/13629_libertyreserve_is_down_for_maintenance_users_are_in_panic_whats_going_on
THE FUTURE OF LIBERTYRESERVE
There are currently two legal actions in Costarica against Libertyreserve. The fact that the Libertyreserve manager and president are fugitive, using false identity, gives NO DOUBT about the result: The Costa Rica Court will terminate the Libertyreserve company and, if they have not run away yet, the Libertyreserve management team will be arrested. The result will then be the same than for e-bullion: MILLIONS OF DOLLARS LOST.
The "market" perfectly knows it: The out-exchange rates that were about 2% to 3% last month, went up to 20% to 25% during the "API hack period" and are now at a high 5% to 8%.
All this means that YES, YOU have Libertyreserve in your account but it is less and less possible to sell it for other e-currency or for real money. All this is going to be worse and worse until the Libertyreserve scam collapses, and that the Libertyreserve owners do the only thing they are able to do: RUN AWAY WITH YOUR MONEY, AS ALL SCAMMERS DO.
Of course Libertyreserve tries to hide the truth, by paying guys to post on various forum. One exchanger even claims to visit LR regularly in Costa Rica. In fact he made an agreement so that he will put all his "moral authority" to make LR users confident, in exchange of the guarantee that HE will not be scammed when the Libertyreserve scammers will run away with your money.
You, and only YOU, know what you have to do: Get rid of Libertyreserve BEFORE Libertyreserve scams you!
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