As the US government reports, it was able to confiscate stolen bitcoins worth 3,6 billion euros or 4,5 billion dollars. They come from a hack on the online trading platform Bitfinex, which traded cryptocurrencies. The hack happened back in 2016. But now the bitcoins should be washed.
The hack on the online trading platform Bitfinex was not that big in 2016, since the maximum value of Bitcoin was still 1.000 euros. However, the value of the 120.000 stolen bitcoins has increased immensely in the meantime. At Bitcoin’s highs, the stolen goods were even worth over 7 billion euros.
120.000 bitcoins confiscated
The US Department of Justice announcedthat the investigators arrested two suspects in addition to the bitcoins. They are also said to be connected to the Bitfinex platform hack. According to Spiegel.de, the couple from New York is said to have tried to wash almost 120.000 bitcoins that came from the hack. However, the American authority monitored access to the wallet. because trading Bitcoin is not as anonymous as many think. Wallets can be monitored and the movement of their content monitored. That was probably the couple's undoing.
The agency announced: “In a vain attempt to maintain digital anonymity, the defendants laundered stolen funds through a maze of cryptocurrency transactions. Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the Department has once again shown how it can and will follow money in any form.”
New York couple arrested
Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A Polite Jr. of the Justice Department's Criminal Division said, "Today, federal law enforcement is demonstrating again that we can track money through the blockchain and that we will not allow cryptocurrency to become a safe haven for money laundering or a zone of the... Lawlessness within our financial system is."
Those arrested are said to be Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife Heather Morgan, 31, both from New York. According to court documents, Lichtenstein and Morgan allegedly conspired to launder the proceeds of 119.754 Bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex's platform. These unauthorized transactions sent the stolen bitcoins to a digital wallet under Lichtenstein's control. Over the past five years, about 25.000 of these stolen bitcoins have been transferred from Lichtenstein's wallet to accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan through a complicated money laundering process. The remaining stolen 94.000 Bitcoin remained in the wallet used.
Online account contained the other wallet keys
After executing court-approved search warrants from online accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan, US Department of Justice special agents gained access to files within an online account controlled by Lichtenstein. These files contained the private keys needed to access the digital wallet that contained the funds stolen from Bitfinex. This allowed the officials to confiscate the missing 94.000 bitcoins.
More at the US Department of Justice Justice.gov