'Black market bank' co-founder sentenced to 20 years in prison in digital plot

New York

THE co-founder of a digital-currency business that prosecutors called a "black market bank" for con artists, hackers, identity thieves, child pornographers and drug dealers around the globe was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

US prosecutors said Arthur Budovsky's company, Liberty Reserve, operated as "the financial hub for cyber criminals around the world". He earned US$25 million in profit while building a business that helped wrongdoers launder hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit profits and mask US$8 billion in criminal transactions, they said.

"Mr Budovsky has used his enormous talents in a way that led to enormous harm, countless victims of his fraud, and many, many victims around the world," US District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan said Friday whe…