New York Couple Pleads Guilty to $4.5 Billion Bitcoin Laundering

A married New York couple is making ready to plead responsible to prices of conspiring to launder billions of {dollars} value of Bitcoin (BTC), which was stolen throughout the infamous 2016 hack of crypto trade Bitfinex.

Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, who have been charged in February final yr after investigators used software program to hint stolen digital foreign money to accounts the 2 owned, are making ready for a plea deal, The Wall Avenue Journal reported, citing a courtroom doc.

The defendants have been beforehand every charged with conspiracy to launder cash and conspiracy to defraud the US.

Notably, they weren’t implicated within the precise hacking of Bitfinex’s community, which noticed over $71 million value of Bitcoin diverted by way of greater than 2,000 unauthorized transfers to an exterior account.

By the point of Morgan and Lichtenstein’s arrest, the stolen cryptocurrency had multiplied to a staggering $4.5 billion.

On the time, prosecutors stated have seized over $3.6 billion in Bitcoin related to the hack.

US District Choose Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has scheduled plea hearings for August 3, 2022.

Morgan, who has been positioned underneath house confinement, and Lichtenstein, who has been detained since being charged, will enter their respective pleas on that date.

The particular prices to which they are going to admit haven’t been disclosed. Morgan’s lawyer declined to offer a remark, whereas the attorneys representing Lichtenstein didn’t reply to requests for remark.

The US Legal professional’s workplace for the District of Columbia is chargeable for dealing with the case.

Who Are Morgan and Lichtenstein?

Morgan and Lichtenstein, who resided in a decrease Manhattan house on the time of their apprehension, have been concerned in marketing-related companies.

Morgan, underneath the moniker Razzlekhan, pursued a profession as a rapper and, in one in every of her songs, referred to herself because the “Crocodile of Wall Avenue,” devoted to hackers and entrepreneurs.

Based on her LinkedIn profile, Morgan has a Grasp of Arts diploma in worldwide financial growth from the American College in Cairo, Egypt, and a Bachelor of Arts in worldwide relations from the College of California, Davis, USA.

Alternatively, Morgan’s accomplice Lichtenstein is a tech entrepreneur and founding father of blockchain start-up Endpass, a cross-platform offline password administration app that seeks to “securely retailer passwords” to “cease fraud and terrorism.”

In the course of the search of the couple’s residence, investigators found a stash of burner telephones, $40,000 in money, and an digital file containing faux identities used to open Bitcoin accounts.

Prosecutors additionally revealed the existence of a separate file that offered directions on buying passports by way of the darkish internet.