Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan (also called the “Crocodile of Wall Road”), have pled responsible to the cash laundering conspiracy prices leveled towards them by the US Division of Justice (DOJ). Based on the assertion launched by the DOJ, on August 3, the couple admitted to laundering the proceeds from a hack of about 120,000 Bitcoin (BTC) from the crypto alternate Bitfinex.
The Backstory Of The Bitfinex Hack
The authorities arrested Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan on February 2022. Upon arrest, the federal government found and seized above 95,000 of the stolen BTC (price near $3.6 billion on the time of the arrest) from crypto wallets that belonged to the defendants. This occasion marked the most important seizure within the company’s historical past. Because the arrest, the Company has found and recovered an extra $475 million price of crypto stolen from the hack.
Based on courtroom paperwork, Lichtenstein, who orchestrated the hack in 2016, admitted to utilizing a number of superior hacking instruments and strategies to entry Bitfinex’s community. As soon as he gained entry, he fraudulently approved over 2,000 transactions which noticed 119,754 BTC being transferred from Bitfinex to Lichtenstein’s crypto pockets.
After stealing the funds, Lichtenstein went again into Bitfinex’s system in a bid to cowl his tracks and deleted the entry credentials, log information, and different digital footprints which will have been traced to him and served as proof for legislation enforcement. It was after the hack that Lintenstein enlisted the assistance of his spouse to launder the stolen funds.
When the Bitfinex hack occurred, bitcoin was buying and selling underneath $1,000 however had skyrocketed to round $44,000 when the couple was arrested in 2022, inflicting the worth of the stolen tokens to extend to about $4.5 billion.
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Cash Laundering Techniques
Lichtenstein and his spouse Morgan used varied cash laundering techniques to launder the funds with out elevating suspicions. They created pretend IDs to arrange on-line accounts on the darkish internet and crypto exchanges the place they deposited the stolen funds.
They then withdrew the funds, transformed the bitcoins to different cryptocurrencies, and saved them in crypto mixing companies. All this was to interrupt the transaction path and make it tougher for the authorities or anybody to hint the funds again to them.
The couple then arrange US-based enterprise accounts to legitimize their banking actions. Lichtenstein additionally exchanged a number of the stolen funds into gold cash, which Morgan helped bury.
Curiously, the couple wasn’t away from the general public eye as Morgan had a LinkedIn web page describing herself as a “development skilled & serial entrepreneur.” She additionally has a TikTok web page the place she provides enterprise ideas.
Liechtenstein at present faces a most penalty of 20 years for conspiracy to commit cash laundering. Whereas Morgan might withstand 5 years after pleading to at least one rely of cash laundering conspiracy and one other rely of conspiracy to defraud the US.
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