Bitfinex: ‘Razzlekhan’ Gets 18 Months in Prison for Money Laundering
Date: 2024-11-19 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: BUSINESS
Heather Morgan, one of two defendants charged with stealing and laundering bitcoins stolen during the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. Washington District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly handed down the sentence on November 18 after Morgan pleaded guilty in August 2023 to conspiracy to commit money laundering and defraud the United States.
Morgan and her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein, admitted to laundering millions of dollars in bitcoins stolen from Bitfinex. However, Lichtenstein’s role turned out to be more significant: in court, he admitted to hacking the exchange. The pair were arrested in 2022, and their case became one of the most high-profile in the field of cryptocurrency crime.
On November 14, the court sentenced Lichtenstein to five years in prison, which is significantly less than the maximum possible 20 years. The mitigation of the sentence is due to the fact that he actively cooperated with the investigation and had no previous criminal record.
As a result of the hacking attack in 2016, Lichtenstein stole 119,754 bitcoins. At the time of the theft, these funds were valued in the millions of dollars, but by the time of the verdict, their value had grown to $10.8 billion. This amount was the largest seizure recorded by the US Department of Justice.
Despite the significant amount of money stolen, only the Bitfinex exchange will be able to return it, according to documents submitted by the US government.
