A New York technology entrepreneur was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison after pleading guilty last year to laundering funds stolen from Bitfinex, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, with the help of his wife. Ta.
The Justice Department said in a statement that Ilya Lichtenstein, 35, used sophisticated hacking tools and techniques to infiltrate Bitfinex's network in 2016 and steal approximately 120,000 bitcoins.
He and his wife Heather Morgan were arrested in February 2022 after promoting her music using the hip-hop alias “Razkulkan.”
The bitcoins were worth $71 million at the time of the theft, but their value had increased to more than $4.5 billion by the time of the arrest.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at the time that the $3.6 billion in assets prosecutors recovered from the couple was the largest financial seizure in Justice Department history.
Mr. Morgan also pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit money laundering. Morgan is scheduled to be sentenced on November 18th.
In addition to his prison term, Lichtenstein was ordered to serve three years of supervised release, the Justice Department said.
