How Hackers Stole $4.5 Billion in Bitcoin | FBI Cryptocurrency Heist Investigation | Finally Caught

Описание: In August 2016, hackers executed one of the most audacious cryptocurrency heists in history, stealing nearly 120,000 Bitcoin from Bitfinex exchange in Hong Kong. What started as a $72 million theft would balloon to over $4.5 billion as Bitcoin's value skyrocketed, making it the largest cryptocurrency heist ever recorded. For nearly six years, the stolen Bitcoin moved through a labyrinth of digital wallets, mixing services, and darknet marketplaces while federal investigators from the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and Homeland Security Investigations meticulously tracked every transaction on the blockchain.
The case seemed unsolvable until February 2022, when federal agents arrested Ilya Lichtenstein, a tech entrepreneur, and his wife Heather Morgan, a rapper known as Razzlekhan, at their luxury Manhattan apartment. Authorities seized over $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency, the largest financial seizure in Department of Justice history. Court documents revealed how the couple had spent years laundering the stolen Bitcoin through complex chain-hopping techniques, fake identities, and darknet transactions, all while living openly in New York.
Blockchain analysis proved to be their undoing. Every transaction, every conversion, every attempt to obscure the money trail was permanently recorded on the public ledger. Investigators discovered private keys on the couple's personal devices, detailed spreadsheets tracking their laundering operation, and communications discussing the scheme. In August 2023, both pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy. Lichtenstein received five years in federal prison after admitting he orchestrated the Bitfinex hack itself, while Morgan was sentenced to 18 months for her role in the laundering operation.
This documentary investigation reveals how the very technology that enabled the crime became the tool that solved it, proving that cryptocurrency transactions are not anonymous but permanently traceable. Approximately $1 billion in Bitcoin remains unrecovered, lost forever or hidden in digital wallets whose keys may never be found.

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