Liberty Dollar Fights Back

Liberty Dollar, the firm that got raided by the FBI before Thanksgiving for trying to start a precious-metals-based currency to compete with the greenback, now says it's back in business.

Well, sort of.

The company's founder, Bernard von NotHaus, said in an email Thursday that he's changed the firm's name to Liberty Dollar Numismatics. And he's also trying to raise money by converting any previously issued Liberty Dollar coins into an Arrest Dollar marked with a special miniature handcuffs hallmark.

Have More Fun With Your Ron Paul Dollars

Add to that a plan to file a class-action lawsuit and a request for donations. But NotHaus hasn't got a bank account -- the FBI closed it down after the November raid. So he's asking for checks to be made out to "Bernard," and mailed to the firm's old address in Evansville, Ind.

"We are still looking forward to our day in court," says NotHaus. "But the federal government is a formidable foe."

Liberty came to prominence in July after it started minting solid silver coins stamped with an image of Ron Paul, a Republican presidential hopeful and an avid supporter of a return to the gold-standard monetary system.

But the operation seemed to come to an abrupt halt when the Secret Service and the FBI raided the firm's Evansville office in mid-November and confiscated all materials, including the precious-metal Liberty Dollar coins and the Ron Paul dollars.

Von NotHaus says he'll take any previously issued Liberty Dollar or Ron Paul dollar coin for a fee of $10 and put the money toward his legal defense fund. He says he expects to be arrested on a multitude of charges, including money laundering and conspiracy, but he's not quite sure when.

The class-action lawsuit against the government is aimed at retrieving property owned by Liberty's customers, but which was confiscated during the raid.