https://www.breitbart.com/econ...stolen-in-2016-hack/

The Justice Department said on Tuesday that two people were arrested this morning in Manhattan for an alleged conspiracy to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange, presently valued at approximately $4.5 billion.

The government said it seized over $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency linked to that hack. That would make it the largest financial seizure by the federal government.

“Today’s arrests, and the department’s largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “In a futile effort to maintain digital anonymity, the defendants laundered stolen funds through a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions. Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the department once again showed how it can and will follow the money, no matter what form it takes.”

“Today, federal law enforcement demonstrates once again that we can follow money through the blockchain, and that we will not allow cryptocurrency to be a safe haven for money laundering or a zone of lawlessness within our financial system,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The arrests today show that we will take a firm stand against those who allegedly try to use virtual currencies for criminal purposes.”

The arrested couple are Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31.

They face federal charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States. They have not been charged in the original 2016 Bitifenex hack.

How do you seize something which doesn't exist?

This whole "cryptocurrency" thing is the biggest con job I've ever seen.

Great, the DOJ found and seized 3.8 billion in Bitcoin. How much time/effort will be spent locating the original owners? Will they be located given back their Bitcoin? What will the DOJ do with it?

quote:

Originally posted by ffips:
Great, the DOJ found and seized 3.8 billion in Bitcoin. How much time/effort will be spent locating the original owners? Will they be located given back their Bitcoin? What will the DOJ do with it?

How much time/effort do they expend to "give back" to poor exploited drug users the cash they seize in drug busts?

Wouldn't the victims of the theft be able to put in a claim to get their property back? As long as they have the proof that they owned the Bitcoin that was stolen from that exchange and they weren't reimbursed by some other means, then they should get it back... eventually.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
How much time/effort do they expend to "give back" to poor exploited drug users the cash they seize in drug busts?

From what I read in the linked article, the Bitcoin was stolen in a 2016 hack.

The DOJ seized those stolen Bitcoin from the fence trying to launder the Bitcoin stolen in the 2016 hack. So, I didn't assume exploited drug users, but instead assumed legal Bitcoin owners as being the original owners.

I could be wrong...

https://www.marketwatch.com/st...tors-say-11644355781

When hackers made off with approximately 120,000 bitcoin from the Bitfinex currency exchange in 2016, it was worth around $71 million .

With the wild upswing in the value of the cryptocurrency, it would now be worth around $4.5 billion .

That presented serious problems for the couple, who have allegedly struggled for the past five years to launder the ever-increasing pile of money, prosecutors said. The pair had appeared to have managed to launder only about 20% of it, according to court papers. Investigators say they seized about 90,000 bitcoin worth around $3.6 billion last week from virtual wallets controlled by the couple.

“As the value of the money grew, this likely became a far more complex scheme than they believed they were getting into when it started,” said attorney Rachel Fiset, of Zweiback, Fiset and Coleman, who specializes in complex financial fraud cases. “It was going to catch up to them at some point because the pot just kept growing. You can’t just hold a few billion dollars for five years unnoticed.”

The duo were scheduled to appear in court Tuesday, authorities said. They have not been charged with perpetrating the hack itself.



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"serious problems" when your "investment" increases by a factor of 63

Sounds like this couple may have stumbled onto the original funds and the Keystone Cops stumbled onto them years later.
These DOJ press releases always make it sound like a sophisticated James Bond type intellect but i suspect it was more like Barney Fife tripping over a gold nugget.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
How do you seize something which doesn't exist?

1.) If a plea deal was offered in exchange for your private keys (12 word phrase)
2.) If your address is blacklisted by centralized exchanges (i.e. coinbase, binance, kraken, etc.), it's not seized, but it would be difficult to offramp to USD, and it's easy to imagine the DOJ referring to that as "seizing"

See, if the first guys had just "seized" it instead of "stealing" it, they wouldn't be in trouble now.

Government is all about semantics.



"Heather R. Morgan is a surrealist artist and investor in SaaS companies. Her investing strategy is guided by her experiences as a serial tech entrepreneur and international economist. When not advising startups, she’s making music videos for rap songs as “Razzlekhan,” fashion designing, or creating multimedia art combining painting, collage, and sculpture with technology.
@HeatherReyhan"

She at least, is very high profile.

Should have setup charitable foundations and "donated" like the politicians do.

Do a little painting, sell those off for 1000x what any real collector would pay.

Then there's the whole NFT movement. Go take a picture of a dog's asshole and make it an NFT for a couple hundred thousand. Are they not seeing what others are doing?

The chick is hot enough. Start an onlyfans account and pay herself $1,000,000 a month. Or sell farts in a jar for $10k each.

Then there's this: https://youtu.be/KaQ-s_P5mwM

Ain't nothing wrong with 2 consenting parties paying for services rendered.

Sounds like the government is getting nervous about being in control of our money supply and is going to go after the largest cryptocurrency hoping to get rid of the hard to track (tax) currency.

Will the DOJ be turning these people over to the IRS for tax evasion charges????? ........ drill sgt.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
How do you seize something which doesn't exist?

This whole "cryptocurrency" thing is the biggest con job I've ever seen.

Yeah, they should have bought into NFT's!

Seems to me that bitcoin was stolen at least twice based on the title of the thread.

My unicorn ran off with all my bitcoin.

Have a feeling the IRS is going to be burn through some calculators soon.

quote:

Originally posted by ffips:
Great, the DOJ found and seized 3.8 billion in Bitcoin. How much time/effort will be spent locating the original owners? Will they be located given back their Bitcoin? What will the DOJ do with it?

Duh. That's easy - they going to buy artwork with it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: parabellum,

Is that lady holding some kind of toad in her hand? Or is it the latest Star Wars toy or something? Baby Yoda's puppy....