Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31, have been dubbed the "Bonnie and Clyde" of the cryptocurrency world, stealing and laundering large amounts of bitcoin from trading platforms.
On February 9, local time, according to the Wall Street Journal, a world-renowned bitcoin theft case has been solved, involving a middle-aged couple in the United States, involving an amount of up to $5 billion.
Male and female thieves
The U.S. Department of Justice reportedly recently seized 94,636 illegally stolen bitcoins from a couple.
The bitcoin seized this time first came from the cryptocurrency trading platform Bitfinex. In 2016, Bitfinex had a huge hacking theft, losing a total of 120,000 bitcoins.
From 2016 to date, Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31, have also conspired to launder the bitcoins — currently worth about $5 billion, according to court documents. Five years before the theft, the value was far less than that.
Prosecutors said the couple used "a number of sophisticated money laundering techniques."
According to federal government documents, the couple used a large number of emails to set up virtual accounts on multiple cryptocurrency trading platforms. An unnamed hacker made more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions to transfer the stolen cryptocurrency to a digital wallet controlled by Lichtenstein. They also transfer stolen funds through online darknet marketplaces like AlphaBay, where perpetrators access through hidden IP, making their identities difficult to trace.
The duo have been dubbed the "Bonnie and Clyde" of the cryptocurrency world. Released in the United States in 1967, the film is also known as the "Male and Female Thief" and is a film and television classic. (Poster from the Internet)
Prosecutors did not say how the couple was traced, but according to Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto analytics firm Elliptic Enterprises Ltd., prosecutors may have targeted the two through AlphaBay.
Morlock, the deputy attorney general in charge of the case, said it was the "largest amount of crime ever recovered" by the U.S. Department of Justice and proved that "cryptocurrencies are not a safe haven for criminals."
Biography is brilliant
At present, two criminals have hired prominent lawyers. The lawyer told the judge that the couple had been informed of the federal government's investigation in November, but that they had not attempted to flee the United States.
U.S. authorities claim that the couple purchased the NFT using partially stolen bitcoins. The judge has now determined the amount of bail, $5 million for Lichtenstein and $3 million for Morgan.
Morgan, 31, describes himself as a "serial entrepreneur, prolific writer, comedy rapper" on the workplace social platform LinkedIn. Her resume is also quite polished: ten years ago, she received a bachelor's degree in economics and international relations from the University of California. She has even written for the famous financial magazine Forbes for a long time. After the incident, Forbes said that Morgan was only a freelance writer and had no employment relationship with the magazine.
Ironically, in a 2020 article for Forbes, she explored how entrepreneurs should protect their businesses as cybercriminals and fraudsters are using the pandemic to wreak havoc.
Morgan also tweeted in 2014 that "it's hard to predict when the value of Bitcoin will drop to zero, but it will happen sooner or later" because it's a fragile asset with no real value."
Lichtenstein, 34, who has dual Citizenship of Russia and the United States, describes himself on LinkedIn as a "technology entrepreneur, programmer and investor" with "an interest in blockchain technology, automation and big data."
Morgan herself is very active on tik tok, she doesn't seem to have a stable job, and often presents herself with a funny image.
In Lichtenstein's LinkedIn self-description, his identity and experience are also very decent.
Reporter Zhou Zimo
Edited by Cheng Hui
Editor-in-Charge Sun Xiao