Pierluigi Paganini
November 15, 2024
“Ilya Lichtenstein was sentenced today to five years in prison for his involvement in a money laundering conspiracy arising from the hack and theft of approximately 120,000 bitcoin from Bitfinex, a global cryptocurrency exchange.” reads the press release published by DoJ.
Over 96% of the stolen funds have been recovered, with most remaining unspent, according to defense attorney Samson Enzer and with assistance from Lichtenstein.
In February 2022, Ilya Lichtenstein (35) and his wife, Heather Morgan (32), were arrested for alleged conspiracy to launder $4.5 Billion in stolen cryptocurrency stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex. Law enforcement also seized over $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency (roughly 95,000 of the stolen crypto assets) linked to that hack.
In August 2023 the married couple from New York pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in connection with the hack of the cryptocurrency stock exchange Bitfinex in 2016.
The hackers stole 120,000 Bitcoin, and the Bitcoin value significantly dropped after the discovery of the security breach.
Since the arrest of the couple, the government has seized another approximately $475 million tied to the cyber heist.
Lichtenstein used a number of advanced hacking tools and techniques to breach Bitfinex’s network and once gained access to its infrastructure fraudulently authorized more than 2,000 transactions in which 119,754 bitcoin was transferred from Bitfinex to a cryptocurrency wallet in his control.
Lichtenstein also managed to cover his tracks by deleting access credentials and other log files. Lichtenstein’s wife, Morgan, helped the man in laundering the stolen funds.
The duo used fake identities to set up online accounts and software to automate transactions, exchanged part of stolen funds into gold coins and other crypto assets, and used mixing services like ChipMixer.
Lichtenstein received a prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release. Morgan’s sentencing is set for November 18.
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