An expert, who has taken it upon himself to tackle the movement of money by child exploiters, has said anonymous sites, such as Liberty Reserve, are making it easier for criminals to operate.
HumanIPO reported on Tuesday Liberty Reserve, based in Costa Rica, had been shut down after its founder Arthur Budovsky was arrested on money laundering charges amounting to US$6 billion.
Speaking to the New York Times, Ernie Allen, head of the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children said the now closed money transfer site was just the tip of the iceberg of the sites which needed to be addressed.
He said: “What we have concluded is that illegal enterprises — commercial child pornography, human trafficking, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and organized crime — has largely moved to an unregulated system that is not connected to any central bank or national authority.
“The key to all of this has been anonymity.”
Tom Kellermann, vice president at security company Trend Micro, said: “There are a multitude of anonymous payment systems out there, similar to Liberty Reserve, of which there are over one hundred.”
Some people Liberty Reserve are concerned they have lost money they had in their accounts and private forums are already discussing which site they should join next.
