THE GUARDIAN: Husband and wife, a rapper on TikTok, are accused in the US’s biggest-ever cryptocurrency theft case
The US justice department has announced the unraveling of its biggest-ever cryptocurrency theft case, seizing a record-shattering $3.6bn in bitcoin in a saga that has captivated the internet.
US officials said on Tuesday the recovered sum was linked to the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange whose systems were breached by hackers nearly six years ago.
Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife Heather Morgan, 31, both New Yorkers, were arrested in Manhattan on Tuesday morning, accused of relying on various sophisticated techniques to launder the stolen cryptocurrency and to conceal the transactions.
They face charges of conspiring to commit money laundering as well as to defraud the United States. The case was filed in a federal court in Washington DC.
“The message to criminals is clear: Cryptocurrency is not a safe haven. We can and we will follow the money, no matter what form it takes,” said the deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, on Tuesday. » | Samira Sadeque and agencies | Wednesday, February 9, 2022
