Rapper and tech entrepreneur Heather Rhiannon Morgan and her husband Ilya Lichtenstein were arrested and charged by the Department of Justice on February 8, 2022. The couple has been slapped with money laundering charges over the 2016 Bitfinex hack, from which they reportedly gained $3.6 billion in stolen cryptocurrency. The arrest is reportedly the DoJ’s largest-ever financial seizure in its history.
As the popularity of crypto has soared over the past decade, numerous fraud cases have also come to the fore. In March 2021, John McAfee was famously charged with securities fraud over a crypto scheme, but the case never proceeded against him after he allegedly died by suicide while in a Spanish jail. Over the past year, ‘memecoins‘ have also become something of a target for fraudsters, as US regulators struggle to grapple with crypto’s booming popularity.
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The worry is greater after many recent hacks, including the famous Colonial Pipeline hack, led to hackers demanding ransom in crypto. Back in 2016, the famous Bitfinex hack knocked off 20% of Bitcoin’s value, To date, the hackers were never arrested, but the DoJ has managed to make some progress on the case with the arrest of Morgan and Lichtenstein.
Who is Heather Morgan?
“I’m many things, a rapper, an economist, a…
