Your Liberty Dollar Raid Update Jeff Taylor
| November 16, 2007, 10:35am
Updating from the previous post on the topic,
the FBI did indeed raid the Liberty Dollar office in Indiana
on Wednesday. Documents filed in U.S. District Court in North
Carolina indicate that the raid was the culmination of a two-year
undercover investigation of Liberty Dollar and its officers.
According to an affidavit (PDF) filed by FBI agent Andrew
Romagnuolo in support of a federal seizure warrant obtained
from a U.S. Magistrate last week, the feds have been investigating
Liberty Dollar not just for violating federal bans on circulating
alternative currency, but also for mail fraud, wire fraud,
and money laundering.
As for the mysterious connection to the Western District
of North Carolina, the document names William Innes of Asheville
as a Regional Currency Officer for Liberty Dollar and an executive
committee member of the company. Undercover government agents
made Asheville a focus of their investigation as a result,
attending area meetings of Liberty Dollar prospective buyers
and sellers.
The affidavit further details Liberty Dollar's structure
and terms it a "multi-level marketing scheme." The
FBI claims the company realizes a profit by selling the Liberty
Dollars into circulation. The feds also went back to October
2002 for bank records of Liberty Dollar principals and cite
large sums of cash moving between accounts said to be controlled
by those individuals.
The document also mentions that the company continued to
circulate Liberty Dollars after it had been warned by the
US Mint not to do so. Part of the evidence cited for this
is an FBI agent purchasing a "The US Mint Can Bite Me"
t-shirt at a Liberty Dollar University event in October 2006.
The affidavit concludes that because the Liberty Dollar operation
uses Federal Reserve Notes to conduct its business, it is
fraudulent. "This reliance upon FRN's by a group opposed
to FRN's demonstrates that the American Liberty Dollar Monetary
system is simply a drain on the United State Government's
monetary system for financial profit via fraudulent means,"
the feds claim. The document further claims there is probable
cause that violations of federal law took place as a result
of these activities.
At no point in the affidavit are Ron Paul Dollars mentioned,
although many other coins are mentioned including a Hawaii
dala offering. As such, accounts of the raid focused on the
Ron Paul angle seem off-base, at least given the available
facts.