Bitcoin Bandits Behind Bars

Ilya "Dutch" Lichtenstein, a 35-year-old man from New York, admitted on Thursday to being the hacker behind the 2016 Bitfinex cyberattack that saw $4.5 billion worth of bitcoin stolen. His wife, Heather Rhiannon Morgan, a rapper known as “Razzlekhan” and “The Crocodile of Wall Street,” also pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the US government. In February 2022, the Department of Justice seized more than 94,000 of the 119,000 hacked Bitcoin, worth about $3.6 billion, marking the largest seizure in DOJ history. Since the arrests, a further $475 million tied to the hack has been confiscated. During their criminal activities, the couple used complicated transactions to launder the funds and lied to a US financial institution about the purpose of their company, Endpass. Lichtenstein faces up to 20 years in prison for his crime, and Morgan faces a maximum sentence of five years and has been free on a $3 million bond since her arrest.