The American court postponed to August the consideration of the case of a married couple involved in the disappearance of 94,000 bitcoins from the Bitfinex exchange.
Judgment in the case of Heather Morgan and her husband Ilya Lichtenstein, accused of attempting to launder cryptocurrencies stolen from the Bitfinex trading platform in 2016, postponed. The young family, infamously known as the Wall Street crocodiles, was due to appear in federal court in Washington on June 3.
But at a court hearing on May 30, federal prosecutors insisted on postponing the hearing to August 2. The prosecution cites “discussions about a possible pre-trial resolution” and the need for defendants to review “voluminous financial statements” released by the government and plead guilty.
Recall that the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange was hacked in August 2016. Hackers were able to steal about 120,000 bitcoins from the site. A few years later, in February 2022, information appeared that the burglars were continuing to cover up the traces of the crime. It was discovered that another batch of bitcoins worth about $3.6 billion was transferred to an unknown address.
A little later, American police arrested a married couple from New York for laundering bitcoins stolen during the Bitfinex hack in 2016. More than 94,000 BTC worth $3.6 billion were seized from the couple. US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco called the seizure “the largest financial confiscation in history.” The DOJ did not charge the couple with hacking, but only with money laundering and initiating over 2,000 unauthorized transactions. The Federal Enforcement Department said the stolen cryptocurrency was worth only $72 million. But at the time of the arrest, the value of the assets had risen to $4.5 billion.
In a statement, Bitfinex confirmed its cooperation with the Department of Justice in the investigation, as it is “delighted that the authorities managed to recover a significant part of the bitcoins stolen during the 2016 hack.”
Source: Bits

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