Fincen Seeks Bank Aid to "Cut Off" Digital Currency Firm Liberty Reserve

The Treasury Department has proposed a rule designed to seal off the U.S. financial system from Liberty Reserve, the digital currency issuer authorities charged Tuesday with laundering more than $6 billion for criminal groups.

The rule would prevent U.S. financial institutions from maintaining correspondent or payable-through accounts for foreign banks that are being used to process transactions for Liberty Reserve, the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said May 28. 

It would also require U.S. institutions to perform special due diligence to ensure that correspondent accounts held by foreign banks are not used for transactions involving Liberty Reserve.

The proposed rule "would effectively cut off Liberty Reserve from the U.S. financial system," Fincen said in a press release. The public will have 60 days to comment on this proposal.

Federal prosecutors in New York indicted Liberty Reserve and seven of its principals for their roles in the alleged $6 billion laundering scheme and for operating an unlicensed money-transfer business.  The indictment alleges that the firm, which is registered in Costa Rica and has been operating since 2001, has become the "financial hub of the cybercrime world" by allowing users to transfer funds anonymously anywhere in the world.

The rule would apply to an estimated 5,000 U.S. institutions, and would prohibit them from "establishing, maintaining, administering, or managing in the United States any correspondent account for or on behalf of a foreign bank if such correspondent account is being used to process transactions involving Liberty Reserve," including any of its subsidiaries.

It would also require banks to put in place "appropriate" controls to identify transactions involving Liberty and to notify account holders that process transactions for Liberty that they may no longer do so.