Liberty Reserve founder Arthur Budovsky was extradited to New York from Spain to face federal charges that his company was a black-market bank which masked more than $6 billion of criminal proceeds.

Liberty Reserve, incorporated in Costa Rica, was one of the worlds most widely used digital currency services, according to the U.S. The company was created and structured to help criminals conduct illegal transactions, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said. Prosecutors shut it down last year.

Budovsky, 40, who was arrested in Spain in May 2013 after being indicted by the U.S., was brought to New York this afternoon, Bharara said. Hes scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 14.

He and six others have been charged in the case. To date, four co-defendants have pleaded guilty and await sentencing. Charges are pending against Liberty Reserve itself and two other men who the U.S. said acted as its operators. Both are Costa Rican citizens, havent been arrested and arent subject to extradition, prosecutors said.

Liberty Reserve had an estimated 1 million users around the world and conducted about 55 million transactions -- almost all of them illegal -- including 200,000 in the U.S., Bharara said. Investigators have found that criminal rings used Liberty Reserve to distribute illicit proceeds from Vietnam, Nigeria, Hong Kong, China and the U.S.

The company helped users launder illegal proceeds from crimes or transfer funds among associates, prosecutors said. Liberty Reserves digital currency was used by people committing identity theft, credit card fraud, computer hacking, child pornography and narcotics trafficking, prosecutors said.

The case is U.S. v. Kats, 13-cr-00368, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at

pathurtado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net Andrew Dunn, Charles Carter

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Liberty Reserve Founder Extradited to New York, U.S. Says