Notorious “Crypto couple” Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan pleaded guilty on Thursday to money laundering conspiracies related to the 2016 massive hack of the crypto exchange Bitfinex.
Lichtenstein also managed to pull off the hack himself, clearing up the years-long mystery of how the pair first came into possession of Bitfinex’s stolen Bitcoin (BTC).
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) says Lichtenstein used “a number of sophisticated hacking tools and techniques” to crack Bitfinex’s network and fraudulently authorize more than 2,000 transactions. In total, he has transferred 119,754 BTC, worth a whopping $3.5 billion at the time of writing, to a wallet under his control.
After securing the stolen Bitcoin, the DOJ says Lichtenstein and Morgan used a series of complex strategies to try to cover up their digital paper trail.
According to the DOJ, the pair sent the crypto to darknet markets and mixers, used false identities, tapped US-based business accounts to legitimize their banking activities, and exchanged some of the stolen BTC for gold coins, which Morgan buried .
Lichtenstein pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering on Thursday, and Morgan pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. He faces up to 20 years in prison and she up to 10 years.
Morgan is a former Forbes columnist and CEO of a copywriting company. She is also a quirky YouTube rapper known as ‘Razzlekhan’.
Lichtenstein, also known as ‘Dutch’, describes himself on LinkedIn as a ‘technology entrepreneur, programmer and investor’.
A limited television series about the couple titled “Razzlekhan: The Infamous Crocodile of Wall Street” is reportedly in development at Hulu.
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Image generated: Midway through the journey