Liberty Reserve tech manager pleads guilty

The former information technology manager at a major digital currency service pleaded guilty on Tuesday for helping the company run a $6 billion global money-laundering operation.

Maxim Chukharev ran technological infrastructure at Liberty Reserve before it was taken down in an international operation last year.

{mosads}According to the Justice Department, the company created a virtual currency that people could use to anonymous make payments back and forth and launder money from illegal activity. The department called the system the “bank of choice for the criminal underworld.”

Liberty Reserve was shut down by the government last year, after conducting about 55 million transactions for a reported 1 million users. Money allegedly came from child pornography, credit card fraud, the drug trade and other sources.

It was the first ever case in which government officials used a provision of the Patriot Act to freeze a company out of the American financial system. 

Chukharev, who is from Costa Rica, was charged along with six other people last year.

Three other co-defendants have previously pleaded guilty.

Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 30.