A message offering cryptocurrency exchange rates is seen on the screen of a Bitcoin ATM installed at a shopping mall on April 16, 2021 in Istanbul, Turkey. | Chris McGrath/Getty Images
The Justice Department on Tuesday announced the arrest of a couple in New York charged with conspiring to launder stolen Bitcoin linked to the 2016 hack of a cryptocurrency exchange from which $4.5 billion went missing.
About $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency from the 2016 hack of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has so far been recovered in what Justice Department officials said Tuesday is the department’s largest such seizure to date.
“Criminals always leave tracks,” FBI Deputy Director Paul M. Abbate said in a statement. “And today’s case is a reminder that the FBI has the tools to follow the digital trail, wherever it may lead.”
The Department’s criminal division identified “Dutch” Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife Heather Morgan, 31, as the co-defendants in this case.