2 years ago
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced the seizure of 94,636 bitcoins straight linked to the 2016 hack of the cryptocurrency speech Bitfinex. This is the DOJ’s “largest cryptocurrency seizure to date.” In addition, 2 radical person been arrested successful transportation with the hack and stolen cryptocurrency.
Bitfinex Hack’s Stolen Bitcoins Seized, 2 People Arrested
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday that the U.S. authorities has seized stolen cryptocurrency straight linked to the 2016 hack of the cryptocurrency speech Bitfinex.
According to the announcement, this is the DOJ’s “largest cryptocurrency seizure to date, valued astatine much than $3.6 billion” astatine the clip of the seizure. At the clip of writing, the worth of the BTC seized is much than $4 billion. The Department of Justice wrote:
Thus far, instrumentality enforcement has seized implicit $3.6 cardinal successful cryptocurrency linked to that hack.
In addition, 2 radical — Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 31 — person been arrested for “alleged conspiracy to launder $4.5 cardinal successful stolen cryptocurrency” from the Bitfinex hack. Specifically, tribunal documents amusement that they “allegedly conspired to launder the proceeds of 119,754 bitcoin” that were stolen from the cryptocurrency exchange.
In the 2016 Bitfinex hack, stolen bitcoins were transferred successful much than 2,000 transactions to a crypto wallet controlled by Lichtenstein. Over the past 5 years, astir 25,000 stolen BTC were transferred retired of his crypto wallet “via a analyzable wealth laundering process,” the DOJ noted, adding that immoderate of the stolen funds were deposited into fiscal accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan.
The remainder of the stolen funds, comprising astir 94,636 bitcoins, remained successful the wallet, the Justice Department further explained.
“After the execution of court-authorized hunt warrants of online accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan, peculiar agents obtained entree to files wrong an online relationship controlled by Lichtenstein,” the DOJ detailed, elaborating:
Those files contained the backstage keys required to entree the integer wallet that straight received the funds stolen from Bitfinex, and allowed peculiar agents to lawfully prehend and retrieve much than 94,000 bitcoin that had been stolen from Bitfinex.
FBI Deputy Director Paul M. Abbate opined: “Today’s lawsuit is simply a reminder that the FBI has the tools to travel the integer trail, wherever it whitethorn lead.”
Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco commented:
Today’s arrests, and the department’s largest fiscal seizure ever, amusement that cryptocurrency is not a harmless haven for criminals.
Lichtenstein and Morgan utilized “numerous blase laundering techniques,” the ailment describes. The techniques included utilizing fictitious identities to acceptable up online accounts, utilizing machine programs to automate transactions, depositing stolen funds into accounts astatine assorted cryptocurrency exchanges and darknet markets, and leveraging “anonymity-enhanced virtual currency (AEC), successful a signifier known arsenic ‘chain hopping.'”
“Lichtenstein and Morgan are charged with conspiracy to perpetrate wealth laundering, which carries a maximum condemnation of 20 years successful prison, and conspiracy to defraud the United States, which carries a maximum condemnation of 5 years successful prison,” the Justice Department concluded.
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Kevin Helms
A pupil of Austrian Economics, Kevin recovered Bitcoin successful 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests prevarication successful Bitcoin security, open-source systems, web effects and the intersection betwixt economics and cryptography.
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