A husband and wife duo have pleaded guilty to laundering $4.5billion worth of funds stolen from one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
Ilya Lichtenstein pleaded guilty conspiracy to commit money laundering for his role in the 2016 Bitfinex hack, which saw hundreds of thousands of bitcoin stolen.
His wife, Heather Morgan, who also makes hip hop music under the name ‘Razzlekhan,’ also faces charges of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States. She is expected to formally plead guilty later today.
The hack saw a total of 119,756 bitcoin stolen from the exchange. In 2016, this sum was estimated to be worth about $72million. The cryptocurrency has since appreciated in value and is now worth close to $4.5billion.
Lichtenstein and Morgan were arrested in February 2022 after federal agents seized about 95,000 bitcoin traced to the hack from wallets owned by Lichtenstein and Morgan.
Federal prosecutors said the seizure was the Justice Department’s largest monetary seizure in history.
‘Cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,’ Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said after the arrest was announced.
According to the Justice Department, Lichtenstein orchestrated the hack by using ‘advanced hacking tools and techniques’ to access to Bitfinex’s network.
Once inside, he authorized 2,000 transactions into a cryptocurrency wallet that he controlled. He also deleted access credentials and log files to cover his tracks.
He then enlisted his wife to help him launder the massive sum of money.
According to prosecutors, Lichtenstein and Morgan moved the money to accounts opened with fictitious identities. They also tried to obfuscate the stolen funds by converting it into other cryptocurrencies.
Morgan also converted a portion of the money into gold coins, which she then buried.
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