The infamous hacker behind the massive $10.934 billion exploit of crypto exchange Bitfinex has been sentenced to five years in prison.
According to a new press release from the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Ilya Lichtenstein – who hacked Bitfinex in 2016 and fraudulently sent 119,754 Bitcoin (BTC) to a wallet under his control – has been sentenced to five years for his role in the scheme.
Court documents show that after the exploit, Lichtenstein took steps to cover his tracks, such as deleting key Bitfinex files that could have helped police identify him. Moreover, he asked his wife to help him launder the stolen money.
Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, used sophisticated money laundering techniques – including depositing and withdrawing funds in and out of the darknet and cryptocurrency exchange, converting the BTC into other forms of digital assets and using crypto mixing services – to cover up the funds. to the DOJ.
Lichtenstein and his wife both pleaded guilty on August 3, 2023, to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. While Morgan will be sentenced on November 18, Liechtenstein will serve his term plus three years of supervised release.
Earlier this month, Morgan said in her sentencing memo that she was “completely shocked” when her husband told her about the hack four years later. According to Morgan, she felt complicit and helped him cover his tracks because she had previously accepted stolen crypto from him.
“In 2020 I heard that my husband Ilya Lichtenstein committed a serious crime in 2016. When he told me what he had done, I was completely shocked. I made the bad decision to get involved in Ilya’s crime. Our relationship was far from perfect, but I love and care about my husband very much. The truth is, I didn’t want him to go to jail because we were planning on starting a family together.”
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