This tech-savvy couple stole $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin. The United States Department of Justice authorities managed to arrest them after an intensive investigation.
Quoted from Market Watch, the US Department of Justice announced it had seized the largest amount of money, USD 3.6 billion in Bitcoin. The money stems from an incident in 2016 where cryptocurrency exchange company Bitfinex was hacked.
The husband and wife with an IT education background in blockchain technology were able to trace the stolen crypto money, in which the amount was almost 120 thousand Bitcoins.
Prosecutors said they were able to trace the stolen crypto money through complex web transactions to hide its origin. The suspects are identified as 34-year-old Liya Lichtenstein and 31-year-old wife Heather Morgan.
They have been arrested by officials in the Manhattan area and are scheduled to face court on charges of conspiracy to launder money and defraud the US government.
Liya herself is a US and Russian national. Meanwhile, his wife in her LinkedIn profile calls herself an entrepreneur from California.
So far, not all Bitcoins stolen in 2016 have been traced and investigations are ongoing. At the time of the hack, the total value of Bitcoin was still USD 71 million and is currently USD 4.5 billion.
"Today, federal law enforcement demonstrated once again that we can track money via blockchain and we will not allow cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to be money laundering." said assistant prosecutor Kenneth Polite.