Page:US District Court, Southern District of New York.-Liberty Reserve Indictment.pdf/13

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space held in the name of shell companies controlled by ARTHUR BUDOVSKY, a/k/a "Arthur Belanchuk," a/k/a "Eric Paltz," the defendant,

28. At or about the same time LIBERTY RESERVE falsely informed SUGEF that it was shutting down its operations in Costa Rica, ARTHUR BUDOVSKY, a/k/a "Arthur Belanchuk," a/k/a "Eric Paltz," ALLAN ESTEBAN HIDALGO JIMENEZ, a/k/a "Allan Garcia," and AZZEDDINE EL AMINE, the defendants, began emptying LIBERTY RESERVE’s bank accounts in Costa Rica of millions of dollars and transferring the money first to a bank account in Cyprus held in the name of a shell company controlled by EUDOVSKY and EL AMINE, and then to a bank account in Russia held in the name of another shell company.

29. Shortly after the defendants began emptying LIBERTY RESERVE'e bank accounts in Costa Rica, the Costa Rican government was able to seize approxlmately $19.5 million in Costa Rican bank accounts maintained by LIBERTY RESERVE pursuant to a request by U734 law enforcement authorities. Following that seizure, BUDOVSKY, HIDALGO, and EL AMINB sought to evade further seizure action by moving LIBERTY RESERVE funds into more than two dozen shell-company accounts held in locations around the world, including Cyprus, Hong Kong, China, Morocco, Australia, and Spain.