What did the FBI mean by this?
>Beginning in 1998, a private businessman, Bernard von NotHaus, began to issue a warehouse receipt currency called “Liberty dollars” based on gold and silver. In 2007, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the vaults of the Liberty dollar, and confiscated $7 million of gold and silver bullion. The seizure warrant was for money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, counterfeiting, and conspiracy.
>Note that none of these charges have anything to do with “legal tender,” or any restrictions on people to transact in the currency of their choice.
>In 2009, von NotHaus was arrested and charged with: one count of conspiracy to possess and sell coins in resemblance and similitude of coins of a denomination higher than five cents, and silver coins in resemblance of genuine coins of the United States in denominations of five dollars and greater, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 485, 18 U.S.C. § 486, and 18 U.S.C. § 371; one count of mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 and 18 U.S.C. § 2; one count of selling, and possessing with intent to defraud, coins of resemblance and similitude of United States coins in denominations of five cents and higher, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 485 and 18 U.S.C. § 2; and one count of uttering, passing, and attempting to utter and pass, silver coins in resemblance of genuine U.S. coins in denominations of five dollars or greater, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 486 and 18 U.S.C. § 2.