A infamous crypto hacker’s spouse — who rapped underneath the identify Razzlekhan and styled herself because the “Crocodile of Wall Street” — was sentenced to 18 months in jail on Monday for serving to her husband launder stolen bitcoin now price $10 billion.
Heather Morgan, 34, was handed the sentence by a federal decide in Washington, DC – simply days after her partner, Ilya Lichtenstein, received 5 years in jail for swiping 119,754 bitcoin from the Bitfinex cryptocurrency trade in 2016.
Morgan and Lichtenstein each pleaded responsible final yr.
Lichtenstein, 35, had claimed Morgan wasn’t concerned within the hack, however solely helped cover the stolen bitcoin.
At Morgan’s urging, he agreed to cooperate with authorities on different circumstances of stolen cryptocurrency in trade for diminished sentences for each of them.
Morgan and Lichtenstein engineered a posh scheme to launder stolen cryptocurrency utilizing fictitious names and shifting the funds in small increments in order to not arouse suspicion, in accordance with court docket data.
The 2 had been arrested at their luxurious high-rise condo on Wall Road in February 2022 – when the stolen bitcoin was price $71 million.
The digital foreign money has soared in current weeks to all-time highs – which means that the loot right now can be price greater than $10 billion {dollars}.
Prosecutors alleged that the “bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde” laundered 21% of the cash that they stole from the Hong Kong-based trade.
At his sentencing final week, Lichtenstein expressed regret for “wasting my talents on crime instead of a positive contribution to society”
He received credit score for the 2 years and 9 months that he has spent in jail since his February 2022 arrest.
Lichtenstein had pleaded with the decide to spare his spouse from having to go to jail, blaming himself for her involvement.
“I want to take full responsibility for my actions and make amends any way I can,” stated Lichtenstein, including he hopes that he can apply his experience to combat cybercrime when he will get out of jail..
Lichtenstein stated he instructed his spouse concerning the hack about three years later, however he initially solicited her assist in laundering the proceeds “without explaining exactly what he was doing,” in accordance with prosecutors.
Morgan “was certainly a willing participant and bears full responsibility for her actions, but she was a lower-level participant,” prosecutors wrote.
“Neither the hack nor the laundering scheme was an impulsive decision. The defendant (Lichtenstein) spent months attempting to gain access to Bitfinex’s infrastructure and get the accesses and permissions he needed in order to orchestrate his hack.”
With Put up Wires
