Their names have been revealed directly by the US Department of Justice: Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31, the two arrested for the hack at Bitfinex in 2016.
The charges against the two arrested for the hack at Bitfinex
According to the DOJ’s official press release, the two worked to launder the 119,754 bitcoins from the hack at Bitfinex in 2016, and to do so, they used more than 2,000 transactions to transfer BTC from wallets to financial accounts. With this ruse, they had managed to move more than 25,000 BTC while the other 94,000 remained immobile and were recovered and seized by US authorities.
In the first hearing, the two could have been granted bail. For them, a New York judge asked respectively 3 million dollars for her and 4.5 million for her husband, but the prosecutors opposed convincing the judge not to release them because they could have tried to escape. Ilya Lichtenstein, in fact, has dual Russian citizenship. The two defended themselves, saying they had no intention to escape, but it was not enough to convince the judges.
They now face up to 25 years in prison.
An entrepreneur and a rapper behind the hack at Bitfinex
But who are the two arrested? They have been dubbed the Bonnie and Clyde of Bitcoin. In real life, Ilya Lichtenstein on Linkedin describes himself as a tech entrepreneur interested in blockchain technology, founder of Endpass, a blockchain startup that solves problems with decentralized identity and authentication. He also describes himself as an investor in startups and cryptocurrency technologies.
More curious is the Linkedin profile of Heather Morgan, who defines herself as “serial entrepreneur, comic rapper and irreverent.” In fact, in New York, Heather Morgan is also known by her stage name Razzlekhan. From the official website, we also find out that she calls herself the “Crocodile of Wall Street” and that her purpose is to defend the misfits and underdogs. She has 4,500 followers on Instagram and 150 on Facebook. Her social bios also include a collaboration with Forbes, which ran from 2017 to 2021.
As they say in journalistic jargon, two unsuspecting who will now have to prove their extraneousness to the serious facts charged against them.
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