Security News > 2023 > August > Couple admit they laundered $4B in stolen Bitcoins after Bitfinex super-heist

Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan on Thursday pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges related to the 2016 theft of some 120,000 Bitcoins from Hong Kong-based Bitfinex.

The Feds arrested Lichtenstein, 35, and Morgan, 33, in February 2022 following the US government's tracing of about 95,000 of the stolen BTC - worth about $3.6 billion at the time and $2.8 billion today - to digital wallets controlled by the married couple.

In case you're wondering, 120,000 BTC in August 2016, when Bitfinex was ransacked, was worth about $70 million; by February 2022, it would have been about $4.8 billion; and today, it's about $3.6 billion.

According to US prosecutors, Lichtenstein gained access to Bitfinex's network using unidentified tools and proceeded to initiate more than 2,000 fraudulent transactions that sent 119,754 bitcoin from Bitfinex into a cryptocurrency wallet he controlled.

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In July, Bitfinex announced that it received $312,219.

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