A social-media rapper, who dubbed herself the “Crocodile of Wall Road,” and her husband have reached a plea cope with prosecutors in a case that concerned laundering billions of {dollars} of stolen Bitcoin, in accordance with a court docket submitting and an individual acquainted with the matter.
Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein are scheduled to seem for a plea listening to on Aug. 3, greater than a 12 months after they had been charged, in accordance with a submitting Friday in federal court docket in Washington. The couple had been arrested in February 2022, however requested delays of their case to facilitate plea discussions, which might point out they’re cooperating with authorities.
Whereas the court docket submitting did not present particulars about anticipated pleas, US District Decide Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the events to offer paperwork for the listening to by July 27, together with a “copy of the plea settlement.”
Protection legal professionals for Morgan and Lichtenstein did not reply to requests for remark, and neither did prosecutors on the US Justice Division.
The federal government accused the couple of conspiring to launder 119,754 of Bitcoin stolen after the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency alternate Bitfinex. They allegedly used faux identities to arrange on-line accounts and hid the path of transactions by depositing after which withdrawing stolen funds from digital foreign money exchanges and darknet markets.
Among the cash they cashed out of Bitcoin ATMs was used to purchase, amongst different issues, NFTs, gold and a Walmart present card, in accordance with the federal government. However prosecutors did not accuse the couple of the particular hack.
Morgan, who additionally known as herself “Razzlekhan,” appeared on social media rapping about funding methods and calling herself a risk-loving moneymaker who was “sly as a gator.” Lichtenstein, who used the nickname “Dutch,” marketed himself as an angel investor in expertise firms, in accordance with his LinkedIn profile.
On the time of the Bitfinex hack, Bitcoin was buying and selling beneath $1,000. After they had been arrested in February 2022, it had topped $44,000, boosting the worth of the stolen belongings to about $4.5 billion — of which $3.6 billion had been recovered by authorities. Since then, Bitcoin has dropped to round $30,000.
The case is US v. Lichtenstein, 23-cr-00239, US District Court docket, District of Columbia (Washington, DC).
