Heather Morgan, Lichtenstein’s wife, paid a $3 million bails. Morgan and Lichtenstein received accusations of stealing almost 120,000 bitcoins from Bitfinex.
Ilya Lichtenstein, one of the accused of laundering money from the multi-billion dollar attack on bitcoin (BTC) exchange Bitfinex in 2016, will remain in custody as the investigation into the case keeps its course.
Judge Beryl A. Howell of the District of Columbia, United States of America, made this move because she believes that Lichtenstein has many reasons to abandon the country. In addition, the judge considers Lichenstein an “expert” in financial tricks that will potentially allow him to live a future outside the United States of America.
Likewise, the court thinks that the alleged hacker has the possibility of moving around with false identities and discreetly working with financial assets, as reported by the New York Times.
While Heather Morgan, the attacker’s wife, which is the main accomplice of the detainee and who was also in police custody, did manage to get out by paying bail of USD 3 million, putting her parents’ house as collateral. Authorities think he complied with all the policies to go through supervised release.
According to the Justice Department complaint, the couple got charged with money laundering and committed fraud to the United States of America.
They Tried to Move at Least 119,754 Bitcoins
Lichtenstein and Morgan got captured when trying to launder at least 119,754 bitcoins extracted from Bitfinex after a hacker breached the platform and enabled more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions almost five years ago.
Mr. Lichtenstein and Ms. Morgan got detained and receive accusations of leading a scheme to launder the 119,754 Bitcoin stolen in the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, which is a cryptocurrency exchange with operations in Hong Kong, placing them at the center of a financial mystery worldwide.
Investigators advised the judge that they had found zero evidence of involvement in the couple that could tie them to the theft, but they showed a sprawling network of accounts through which they said the pair were actively leading operations to launder the stolen funds.
The confiscation of the Bitcoin housed in Mr. Lichtenstein’s wallet on Feb. 1, worth at least $3.6 billion at the time, officials highlighted that it was the Justice Department’s largest financial seizure ever. The case got classified as a watershed in the regulation and investigation of the crypto environment.
Cryptocurrencies Sent to a Digital Wallet Under Lichtenstein’s Control
Of the 119,754 BTC, 25,000 BTC got moved through transferences during the last five years. The agents that led the investigation gained access to a file that had the private keys needed to enter the digital wallet where the extracted Bitfinex funds got collected.
The remaining 94,000 BTC got seized by the authorities. This criminal action got described as the most prominent seizure of stolen funds in the history of the Department of Justice.
By: Jenson Nuñez
