E-Gold, Owners Indicted for Money Laundering

E-Gold Accounts Worldwide Seized

A two and a half year investigation by the US Secret Service, FBI, and IRS has resulted in federal charges of money laundering and other crimes for the popular Internet payment processor E-Gold and its owners. The indictments were unsealed and announced by the US Department of Justice on Friday, April 27, 2007.

Charged with the four-count indictments are:

E-Gold Ltd,
Gold & Silver Reserve, Inc.,
Dr. Douglas L. Jackson (Satellite Beach, Florida),
Reid A. Jackson (Melbourne, Florida),
Barry K. Downey (Woodbine, Maryland).

According to the US Department of Justice, they have each been charged with "one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business under federal law and one count of money transmission without a license under D.C. law." (http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/April/07_crm_301.html)

Twenty four seizure warrants on 58 accounts, along with a restraining order on the assets of those charged were also issued.

Ramifications of these actions were seen immediately all over the world. The E-Gold accounts of many of the major Internet money exchangers were seized, including Omnipay, 1mdc, Icegold, AnyGoldNow and others.

In addition, E-Gold account holders from many countries are now receiving this message when they try to login to their E-Gold account:

"Unable to login to account.

Access denied

The IP you are using to access the e-gold website (xx.xx.xxx.xxx) appears on DNS blacklist(s) as being either an open proxy or otherwise exploited. You will not be permitted to access e-gold services from this IP while the DNS blacklist record(s) remain active."

The message goes on to give instructions regarding how to try to get off of the DNS blacklist.

The end result seems to be confiscation of thousands, if not millions, of dollars of funds in E-Gold accounts from all over the world. Not only are the purported accounts of the criminals involved, but also funds of thousands of innocent E-Gold account holders.