Users on Reddit and the bitcointalk.org forums are reporting receiving emails from Dwolla stating that they are no longer allowed to process payments associated with Mt. Gox, due to a court order from the US Department of Homeland security. The Mt. Gox / Dwolla combination has been the most convenient (and cheapest) way for most people to convert bitcoins into cash.

The full text of the email from Dwolla reportedly looks like this:

You’re receiving this notice because our systems have indicated that you’ve processed and completed a real-time Dwolla-to-Dwolla payment to Mutum Sigillum LLC (“Mt. Gox”) within the last 24 hours.

Due to recent court orders received from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Dwolla is no longer legally able to service Mutum Sigillum LLC’s account.

This is a courtesy email encouraging you to follow up on any uncompleted orders with Mutum Sigillum LLC as Dwolla is now unable to move money to and from Mutum Sigillum LLC’s Dwolla account.

Dwolla is not party to this matter nor does it have any information or further insight into the situation. We strongly encourages those with questions to contact Mutum Sigillum LLC

Note: Dwolla requires a court order before honoring requests such as seizing funds or revoking access to an account.

On behalf of Dwolla, we apologize for this inconvenience.

I haven’t seen anything official from either Gox or Dwolla yet, so it’s possible that this is a coordinated hoax in an attempt to manipulate market prices, I suppose. The prices of both BTC and LTC are already down quite a bit on the news.

Update: Mt. Gox has posted a short statement on their site regarding the order.

Update 2: CNET is reporting that they were able to confirm the validity of the story. Not a hoax.

Update 3 (5/15): Ars Technica has the reason for the DHS action.