Representatives of the US authorities announced the detention of two persons involved in the hacking of the Bitfinex exchange in 2016 and the confiscation of bitcoins worth $3.6 billion.
According to a press release from the US Department of Justice, the defendants are the spouses – 34-year-old Ilya Lichtenstein and 31-year-old Heather Morgan.
“According to court documents, Lichtenstein and Morgan allegedly conspired to launder the proceeds of 119,754 bitcoin that were stolen from Bitfinex’s platform after a hacker breached Bitfinex’s systems and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions.”
According to officials, the stolen cryptocurrency ended up in a Liechtenstein-controlled wallet.
“Over the last five years, approximately 25,000 of that stolen bitcoin were transferred out of Lichtenstein’s wallet via a complicated money laundering process that ended with some of the stolen funds being deposited into financial accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan.”
The remainder of the stolen coins – more than 94,000 BTC were kept in a separate wallet.
“The remainder of the stolen funds, comprising more than 94,000 bitcoin, remained in the wallet used to receive and store the illegal proceeds from the hack. After the execution of court-authorized search warrants of online accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan, special agents obtained access to files within an online account held by Lichtenstein.
Those files contained the private keys required to access the digital wallet that directly received the funds stolen from Bitfinex and allowed special agents to lawfully seize and recover more than 94,000 bitcoin that had been stolen from Bitfinex. The recovered bitcoin was valued at over $3.6 billion at the time of seizure.”
Representatives of the Ministry of Justice stressed that this is the largest case of confiscation of cryptocurrency in the department’s history.
“Today’s arrests, and the department’s largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco.
“Today, federal law enforcement demonstrates once again that we can follow the money through the blockchain and that we will not allow cryptocurrency to be a safe haven for money laundering or a zone of lawlessness within our financial system,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Divisio
“Criminals always leave tracks, and today’s case is a reminder that the FBI has the tools to follow the digital trail, wherever it may lead,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul M. Abbate.
If Lichtenstein and Morgan are found guilty, they face up to 25 years in prison. both, New Yorkers, are scheduled to make their initial appearances in federal court today at 3:00 p.m. in Manhattan.
Bitfinex representatives said they would continue to work with the US Department of Justice to try to receive seized bitcoins. If this succeeds, the company will use 80% of the amount received within 18 months to buy back and burn UNUS SED LEO tokens, as provided in the white paper.
As a result of a hack in early August 2016, Bitfinex lost almost 120,000 BTC, $71.8 million at the exchange rate at that time, more than $5 billion at the current exchange rate.
In May 2020, unknown persons sent 30.667192 BTC from stolen funds to anonymous addresses. In August, 4571 BTC and 473.3183 BTC moved.
Recently TheCryptoBasic reported on Feb 1st, that 20,000 Bitcoin Worth $767M were moved from Bitfinex 2016 Hack.
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