1 year ago
A New York man, Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein, has admitted to the 2016 Bitfinex hack portion entering his blameworthy plea to charges of wealth laundering associated with the hack. His confession connected Thursday has shed airy connected a $4.5 cardinal cyber heist that remained anonymous until now.
Lichtenstein’s plea proceeding took spot successful Washington, D.C., national court, with his wife, Heather Rhiannon Morgan, awaiting her ain plea proceeding successful the assemblage astatine property time. The mates was suspected of being progressive successful laundering the stolen funds, but until now, their nonstop engagement successful the archetypal hack was not known.
Six years connected the run
Arrested successful February 2022, Lichtenstein and Morgan were initially tied to much than 94,000 Bitcoin (BTC)of the implicit 119,000 Bitcoin stolen from the cryptocurrency speech Bitfinex. These funds were valued astatine astir $3.6 cardinal astatine the clip of seizure, marking the largest seizure successful Department of Justice (DOJ) history. The full worth of the stolen Bitcoin, initially worthy $70 million, skyrocketed to $4.5 cardinal owed to the volatile cryptocurrency market.
The couple, however, was not charged straight successful transportation to the hack. Instead, they were implicated successful an intricate wealth laundering process, done which astir 25,000 of the stolen Bitcoin were shifted retired of Lichtenstein’s wallet into fiscal accounts controlled by the couple.
Lichtenstein, a Russian emigre, has been successful custody without enslaved since his arrest, deemed a formation hazard by the court. His blameworthy plea to a complaint of conspiracy to perpetrate wealth laundering comes with the statement to cooperate with national investigators.
Meanwhile, Morgan, who has adopted the rapper monikers “Razzlekahn” and “The Crocodile of Wall Street,” had been escaped connected a $3 cardinal enslaved since her arrest. In their archetypal brushwood successful implicit a year, Lichtenstein smiled and blew a buss astatine his woman during the tribunal hearing.
Details emerged astir the couple’s analyzable fiscal dealings during his plea hearing. This included converting assets to golden coins, buried astatine a determination present known to instrumentality enforcement, and an planetary web of middlemen utilized to person integer assets to cash.
Further investigations revealed that Lichtenstein, successful collaboration with Morgan, had been conducting a bid of small, analyzable transactions crossed aggregate accounts and platforms since 2017 to obscure the way of the stolen funds. The mates besides allegedly utilized their company, Endpass, to launder the stolen funds, misrepresenting the quality of payments into the company’s account.
The unraveling of this unprecedented cybercrime has sparked sizeable interest, with Netflix commissioning a bid astir the couple.
The station Ilya Lichtenstein admits to 2016 Bitfinex hack portion entering blameworthy plea to wealth laundering charges appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.
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