New York crypto pair in attack of the century

In June 2020, Heather Morgan wrote a column for Forbes with the heading "Experts share tips on protecting their company against cybercriminals". Now US authorities claim that she was more expert than she wanted to admit.

On Tuesday, the entrepreneur and prospective rapper was arrested and charged with her husband Ilya Lichtenstein-stolen bitcoins worth more than $ 3.6 billion when the US government took control of bitcoins worth $ 3.6 billion-the greatest financial confiscation in the history of the Ministry of Justice.

The Doj accused the couple, who is now in custody, the application of a "complicated money laundering process"-did not try to connect them to the actual theft-in a 20-page court act in which the allegations against them were presented.

Samson Enzer, the couple's lawyer, argued on Wednesday in a file that "there were" significant gaps in the government against them ".

His shiny flowcharts cannot hide the many defects in the government's evidence and those who have not been supported, ”added Enzer, who did not respond to inquiries for further comments.

Since their arrest for conspiracy for money laundering and the United States fraud, speculation around Morgan, 31, and Lichtenstein, 34, which led a colorful online life, while they were supposedly on a fortune stolen cryptocurrency.

In 2016, unknown thieves with 19,754 Bitcoin made it, almost 1 percent of the cryptocurrency in circulation at that time. Since then, its value of $ 71 million has increased to more than $ 4.5 billion today.

The Doj claims that the Bitcoin couple have exchanged about $ 2.9 million in Fiat currency. However, the authorities said that more than 80 percent of the stolen cryptos in connection with Morgan and Lichtenstein, which describes himself as a technology entrepreneur, remained unaffected.

The government's specific money laundering allegations affect relatively small sums, including the purchase of a walmart gift card worth $ 500. The couple supposedly also bought gift cards for Uber, Hotels.com and PlayStation.

The sheer size of the robbery would have been problematic for everyone who led him. "If they had stolen 500 Bitcoin, nobody would have bought to find them, but that was the attack of the century," said Frank Weert, co-founder of Whale Alert, a Blockchain tracking and analysis company. "It [would be] incredibly stupid to steal so much bitcoin."

Morgan is a self -proclaimed “series entrepreneur, [software] investor and surrealistic artist/rapper”. In addition to her regular columns for Forbes, she also wrote for the Magazine Inc magazine on topics that ranged from leadership qualities to "techniques to deal with snakes to coping with stress".

Your forbes author biography was: "If you don't reconstruct black markets to find better ways to combat fraud and cybercrime, you like to rap and design streetwear fashion."

You rap overshadow his rapsheet.

Razzlekhan, an emerging rap artist, sang on YouTube via the US health system, entrepreneurship and a gynecological illness called endometriosis. She described herself as a "hacker mentality" and rapped that "the blind follow of rules is something for fools".

Lichtenstein was a loyal fan. His marriage proposal to Morgan in 2019 included the purchase of several Razzlekhan advertising boards on New York Times Square. Lichtenstein wrote on Facebook that the rapper personality of his fiancee was "surreal, mysterious, creepy and sexy". . . Terrifying enough to attract attention, and tempting enough that you can't look away ”.

The money laundering allegations mainly focus on Lichtenstein, who is a double citizen of the United States and Russia, even though it led a more reserved life on the Internet. "You rap overshadow his rapsheet," said Nicholas Weaver, lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley School of Computer Science.

In 2018,

Lichtenstein was founded by a company called EndPass, which was described as "a blockchain startup that solves problems with decentralized identity and authentication". According to his LinkedIn profile, he has led a Angel investment company named Demandpath, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In photos on social media, her apartment in Lower Manhattan, which you seem to rent, was crammed with cat toys, home -made positions and training equipment. The couple has a Bengal cat named Clarissa, which they led on a leash. Morgan worked and turned YouTube videos about entrepreneurship, juicing and eyeball prostheses on a small desk that was decorated with collages from postcards and currencies from Kazakhstan and Vietnam.

Her lawyer argued in court documents who applied for a deposit that they were not a fluid risk because their frozen embryos were in a New York hospital. "The couple would never flee out of the country, at the risk of losing access to their ability to get children who discussed this year until their lives were interrupted by their arrests," wrote Enzer.

He also said that the couple had been aware of them since November and had followed the authorities since the Ministry of Justice searched their apartment on January 5 and confiscated travel documents and computers.

The doj claims that these searches were fertile - and colorful. It is said that codes were found for the missing Bitcoin in a file in Lichtenstein's cloud account, which "contained a list of 2,000 virtual currency addresses.. Almost all of [which] were associated with the hack".

An electronic document called "Passideen" contained links to Darknet providers, of which the Doj said that they apparently sold incorrect ID cards. Another contained the name of a Russian bank, which a member of the couple had referred to as "spongy Russian Oligarchenbank". The Lichtenstein Cloud memory allegedly contained a folder with the inscription "Personas" with false ID documents.

"To be wise in no way prevents it from being stupid," said David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50-Fuß Blockchain. He said that Bitcoin was more difficult to wash than other cryptocurrencies because it was easier to track down blockchain.

The Doj claims that the couple sometimes used their real names and addresses when it created accounts on regulated stock exchanges that were later used to buy gold with Bitcoin. Weaver said in an investigation of this kind: "A mistake becomes a bread crumb that can be followed".

razzlekhan, who calls itself the “crocodile of Wall Street”, writes on her website that it always goes to the limits of the feasible. "It is unclear whether this leads to something wonderful or terrible; it is only that it does not become boring or mediocre."