US Dept. Of Justice Attacks Digital Currency Companies
The US Department of Justice has filed indictments against E‑Gold Ltd. and Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc. charging them with Money Laundering and Illegal Money Transmitting. Pseudonymous and anonymous digital currency are a core component in many cryptographic protocols.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:04 am
MoneyNetNews reports that it appears that the US Gov’t may have started forcing redemptions of the Gold stocks held by E-Gold Ltd. in the following article:
US Government Forces E-gold Redemptions - Seizes Gold
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In an unprecedented move on or just before Wednesday May 9th, 2007, the United States of America has forced Omnipay et al E-gold to redeem all the gold backing the 58 previously frozen accounts owned by e-gold, 1mdc, icegold and a handful of other exchangers and customers to be liquidated effective immediately to a us dollar account owned by the federal government.
According to the reduction in the gold bar list, the bar count has dropped by 48 bars of approximately 400 oz each between May 3, and May 9.
This redemption totals USD $11.357 Million.
Date Gold Grams ($ Value)
03-05-07 3,489,436 77.015 Million
09-05-07 2,974,871 65.668 Milllion
Gold Bars value Sold: USD 11.357 Million
MoneyNetNews has learned from a reliable source that e-gold has been ordered to hand over a fresh copy of the customer database when the redemption is completed.
MoneyNetNews cannot confirm if all of the 48 bars redeemed account for the forfeiture action of the United States. It is possible that a part of this activity can be accounted for by increased volatility in e-gold’s general market.
Not only was E-gold / Omnipay ordered to convert gold (and silver) holdings in the seized accounts into US Dollars, but that included their own (Omnipay’s, and E-gold’s) frozen (seized) accounts. This will ultimately result is great losses of value over time even if the victims of the seizures are found to be innocent due to the in progress bull market in gold and bear market in US Dollars.
The seizure order appears to be unrelated to the criminal case in progress against E-gold and OmniPay in that the seizure of the accounts by the government was done under a (separate) civil case, for which the Government has yet to file anything.
By doing so, the government was able to seize accounts without having to reveal anything to the owners of the accounts themselves. By law, the government has 30, and possibly up to 90 days to file a complaint.
Until the government civil filing is done, none of the victims of the seizures can possibly do anything to defend themselves, not even obtain information as to why their accounts have been seized, or what they would have done wrong.
None of the victims of the account seizures have been advised of anything officially at this time.
July 30th, 2007 at 8:25 am
August e-gold Update: Customers and Agents still support e-gold
Since the indictment has daily activity for e-gold slowed? No, its stronger today than ever. We profiled 60 of the larger agents and sales are booming.
60 e-gold Exchange Agents, Who’s Still Alive? You Might Be Surprised…
http://www.digitalmoneyworld.com/60-e-gold-exchange-agents-whos-still-alive-you-might-be-surprised/
Mark