Accused Bitfinex Bitcoin launderer has given permission to “engage in legal employment” – Bitcoin News

On February 8, 2022, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) arrested a couple accused of laundering 94,636 bitcoins stolen from Bitfinex in 2016. The DOJ claims that technology founder Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan conspired to launder bitcoin worth billions of dollars. The duo could face up to 25 years in federal prison if convicted. Five months later, a report indicates that a federal judge has given Morgan permission to get a job and “go into legal employment.”

Former Forbes author and street rapper Heather Morgan granted pre-trial release to work

Heather Morgan, one of the accused Bitfinex launderers, will be allowed to get a traditional job after a judge gave the former technology writer at Forbes the opportunity to work while her trial continues. Morgan, who also appeared as a New York street rapper called “Razzlekhan” or “Crocodile of Wall Street”, is accused of an “alleged conspiracy to launder” 94,636 bitcoins currently worth $ 1.95 billion by use current BTC exchange rates. Morgan and her husband were arrested earlier this year, and bitcoins derived from the Bitfinex hack in 2016 were once worth $ 4.5 billion.

This week, a Bloomberg report indicates that a federal judge has given Morgan permission to work in the middle of her release before the trial. While crimes such as murder and burglary have a very low probability of being released before the trial, statistics show that offenses involving conspiracy to launder and fraud charges have an 82% chance of being released before trial for specific obligations such as attending a funeral or engage in work. The judge leading Morgan’s case has allowed the former technology writer and rapper to seek “legitimate employment”.

The infamous Bitfinex notch from 2016 was close to six years ago, when the stock exchange lost 119,754 BTC at 10:26 (ET) that year on 2 August. As soon as the Bitfinex hack news in 2016 spread, the price of bitcoin fell 22% against the US dollar during the 24-hour period that followed the robbery. It is believed that Bitfinex hackers were able to access the Bitfinex server for several weeks before the cryptocurrencies were stolen, as reports say that the attackers were searching for private keys. For almost six years, or until five months ago, the Bitfinex robbery was a mystery, and chain seekers looking at the stolen coins monitored the storage for movements on the blockchain.

U.S. law enforcement agent claims 2017 Alphabay transactions allegedly linked to Lichtenstein and Morgan

During the first months, the stolen Bitfinex bitcoins remained inactive, but suddenly began to move in January 2017. It is believed that the coins were shuffled using BTC tumbling services, and then sent to the now defunct Alphabay darknet marketplace (DNM). On a few occasions after that, the 119,754 stolen bitcoins were transferred to unknown BTC wallets, but most of the transfers were sent in fractions. On February 1, 2022, 94,636 BTC from the 2016 notch were consolidated into a single address, and at that time no one knew why the BTC consolidation took place. It was not until a week later that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) notified the public that law enforcement seized 94,636 BTC.

The DOJ revealed that a married couple, Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31, were arrested for an “alleged conspiracy to launder” the stolen Bitfinex BTC. An afr.com report further claims that BTC sent to Alphabay DNM was in some way linked to the arrest of Lichtenstein and Morgan years later. The police who made the connection refused to say exactly when and how it was discovered that the two cases were allegedly connected.

While Morgan has been allowed to find “legitimate job” opportunities, her and Lichtenstein’s apparent history has seen a lot of pressure over the past five months. For example, almost immediately after the couple’s arrest, the streaming media company Netflix revealed that it had “commissioned a documentary series about a couple’s alleged plan to launder billions of dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency in history’s biggest criminal economic crime case.”

What do you think about the federal judge giving Heather Morgan permission to work while her money laundering trial continues? Tell us what you think about this topic in the comments section below.

Jamie Redman

Jamie Redman is a news editor at Bitcoin.com News and a financial engineering journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 5,700 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols that are emerging today.