The US Justice Department has arrested Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife Heather Morgan. 31, with conspiring to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex.
The US has seized over $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency and is accusing the couple of conspiring to launder the proceeds of 119,754 bitcoin. Federal officials said they were able to seize about 94,000 of the 119,754 stolen bitcoin, which would be worth about $4.1B at today's prices.
The couple will make an initial court appearance this afternoon.
This is being touted as the single largest financial seizure ever.
The break might have come late last month. On January 31, 10,000 of the stolen bitcoin from the Bitfinex hack were transferred.
The indictment said that over the last five years, approximately 25,000 of the stolen bitcoin were transferred out of Lichtenstein's wallet "via a complicated money laundering process" that ended with some of the money being deposited into accounts held by him and his wife.
The report said special agents obtained access to files within an online account controlled by Lichtenstein that included the private keys. With that, the agents seized the remaining 94,000 coins.
Reports say this is the woman arrested... the Crocodile of Wall Street:
This is also an important point:
