US seizes about $3.6 billion in stolen bitcoin

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on the 8th that it had seized about $3.6 billion worth of stolen bitcoin and arrested a couple on suspicion of money laundering.

The Associated Press, citing federal law enforcement officials, reported that the stolen money was involved in a bitcoin theft in 2016. At that time, a hacker attacked the Bitcoin exchange system of the virtual currency trading platform, and the stolen Bitcoin had a market value of 71 million US dollars at the time, and now it has exceeded 4.5 billion US dollars.

Law enforcement officers arrested a couple related to the case in Manhattan, New York on the 8th: Ilya "Dutch" Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31. The two were not involved in hacking crimes, but were involved in laundering stolen funds and face money laundering and fraud charges.

After the bitcoin theft in 2016, a hacker initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized bitcoin transactions, transferring nearly 120,000 bitcoins to a virtual currency account controlled by Lichtenstein, according to the Associated Press. . Over the next five years, Lichtenstein and Morgan used multiple accounts and multiple methods to launder about 25,000 bitcoins into other virtual currencies.

In order to hide the transfer path, they also use the darknet platform to trade. Analysts believe that after the platform was destroyed by the US Department of Justice in 2017, the illegal activities of the two were exposed. Prosecutors say they squandered millions of dollars of illicit proceeds on gold, Walmart supermarket shopping cards and a variety of items including non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Both Lichtenstein and Morgan hold dual U.S. and Russian citizenship. The two are still in custody. A magistrate determined that Lichtenstein and Morgan were on bail at $5 million and $3 million, respectively.

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said it was the largest amount of stolen money ever seized by the U.S. Department of Justice. In a video released that day, she said that bitcoin is not a "safe haven" for illicit gains and that law enforcement officers will track down the stolen money.