Feds arrest Bitfinex hackers and seize $3.6B
The United States Justice Department declared Tuesday that it managed to confiscate $3.6 billion in misappropriated cryptocurrency supposedly connected to the 2016 hacking of the digital trading platform Bitfinex. The seizure has marked the federal agency’s biggest financial confiscation so far, according to Deputy Attorney General, Lisa Monaco.
The culprits have been revealed by the justice officials to be Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his spouse Heather Morgan, 31, who are believed to have stolen 94,000 bitcoin, at the time valued at approximately $3.6 billion, through hacking the Bitfinex online platform. The couple is expected to have its first appearance before the federal court on the charges of money laundering and state fraud.
“Today, federal law enforcement demonstrates once again that we can follow money through the blockchain, and that we will not allow cryptocurrency to be a safe haven for money laundering or a zone of lawlessness within our financial system,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. said in a statement.
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