WASHIINGTON–A New York man has pleaded guilty to the hacking of bitcoin in a 2016 cyberattack on Bitfinex that resulted in the theft worth $4.5 billion.
Ilya "Dutch" Lichtenstein, 35, entered the surprise guilty plea in Washington federal court. The plea came before his wife, 33-year-old Heather Rhiannon Morgan, who was in the audience, stepped up to enter her own guilty plea to two charges, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the United States government, according to CNBC.
Up until the admission by Lichtenstein, it was not publicly known who had hacked the bitcoin from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, the report stated, pointing out that the couple had not been charged in the hack itself.
Lichtenstein faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison for one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, CNBC reported noting the Russian emigre, has been held without bond since his arrest after a judge ruled he is a flight risk and will remain jailed until his sentencing. He has agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.
The ‘Crocodile of Wall Street’
Morgan, an aspiring rapper known as "Razzlekhan" and "The Crocodile of Wall Street," faces a maximum possible sentence of five years in prison, CNBC said.
“Lichtenstein smiled at her and blew her a kiss during their moment of eye contact, the first time they had seen each other in more than a year,” the report stated.
When they were arrested in February 2022, the Department of Justice said officials had seized more than 94,000 bitcoin of the more than 119,000 hacked bitcoin. The seized cryptocurrency at the time was worth about $3.6 billion, making it the largest seizure in DOJ history.
"Since their arrests, the government has seized another approximately $475 million tied to the hack," the DOJ said in a press statement.
Traveled to Ukraine, Kazakhstan
According to authorities, Lichtenstein's past travel to Ukraine and Kazakhstan was done to convert digital assets to cash through Russian and Ukrainian middlemen. That cash was then shipped to addresses in Russia and Ukraine, where Lichtenstein picked it up physically and deposited it into U.S. accounts so he could retrieve it while in New York City.
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