{"id":28582,"date":"2024-11-15T07:27:18","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T12:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=28582"},"modified":"2024-11-15T07:28:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T12:28:36","slug":"us-hacker-sentenced-over-bitcoin-heist-worth-billions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/11\/15\/us-hacker-sentenced-over-bitcoin-heist-worth-billions\/","title":{"rendered":"US hacker sentenced over Bitcoin heist worth billions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A hacker has been sentenced to five years in a US prison for laundering the proceeds of one of the biggest ever cryptocurrency thefts.<\/b><\/p>\n

Ilya Lichtenstein pleaded guilty last year in the case involving the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange being hacked in 2016 and the theft of almost 120,000 bitcoin.<\/p>\n

He laundered the stolen cryptocurrency with the help of his wife Heather Morgan, who used the alias Razzlekhan to promote her hip hop music.<\/p>\n

At the time of the theft, the bitcoin was worth around $70m (\u00a355.3m), but had risen in value to more than $4.5bn by the time they were arrested. At today’s prices they would be worth more than double that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The $3.6bn worth of assets recovered in the case was the biggest financial seizure in the Department of Justice’s history, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to send a message that you can\u2019t commit these crimes with impunity, that there are consequences to them,\u201d district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said.<\/p>\n

Lichtenstein, who has been in prison since his arrest in February 2022, expressed remorse for his actions.<\/p>\n

He also said that he hopes to apply his skills to fight cybercrime after serving his sentence.<\/p>\n

Morgan also pleaded guilty last year to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. She is due to be sentenced on 18 November.<\/p>\n

According court documents, Lichtenstein used advanced hacking tools and techniques to hack into Bitfinex.<\/p>\n

Following the hack, he enlisted Morgan’s help to launder the stolen funds.<\/p>\n

They “employed numerous sophisticated laundering techniques”,\u00a0the Department of Justice said in a statement,\u00a0external<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The methods included using fictitious identities, switching the funds into different cryptocurrencies and buying gold coins.<\/p>\n

Lichtenstein, who was born in Russia but grew up in the US, would then meet couriers while on family trips and move the laundered money back home, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Heather<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Heather Morgan posted hip hop videos under the alias Razzlekhan<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Morgan’s Razzlekhan persona went viral on social media<\/a>\u00a0when the case emerged.<\/p>\n

Even as the couple attempted to cover up the hack, she published dozens of expletive-filled music videos and rap songs filmed in locations around New York.<\/p>\n

In her lyrics she called herself a “bad-ass money maker” and “the crocodile of Wall Street”.<\/p>\n

In articles published in Forbes magazine, Morgan also claimed to be a successful technology businesswoman, calling herself an “economist, serial entrepreneur, software investor and rapper”.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A hacker has been sentenced to five years in a US prison for laundering the proceeds of one of the biggest ever cryptocurrency thefts. Ilya Lichtenstein pleaded guilty last year in the case involving the […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,3],"tags":[4510,8289,10793,9077,4686,4835,2936,983,4974],"class_list":{"0":"post-28582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-bitcoin","11":"tag-bitfinex","12":"tag-conspiracy-to-commit-money-laundering","13":"tag-crypto-exchange","14":"tag-cryptocurrency","15":"tag-cyber-crime","16":"tag-hacking","17":"tag-theft","18":"tag-us-department-of-justice","19":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28584,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28582\/revisions\/28584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}