According to Reuters, a pair accused of money laundering in connection with the 2016 hack of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has reached a plea agreement.
Senior Pick According to reports, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has instructed the prosecution to provide a duplicate of the plea agreement entered into by Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein by July 27. Then, on August 3, a plea hearing will take place in a courthouse in Washington.
Reuters based its data on recently filed court documents. A July 20 submission’s abstract indicates that the Justice of the Peace cases for both parties have been closed pending deadlines, motions, and excludable even though it didn’t establish the contested document.
Approximately 100,000 BTC from a Bitfinex hack had been allegedly laundered by Morgan and Lichtenstein, who were detained in February 2022.
Case is still advancing
In advance, CryptoSlate said that the pair had laundered 119,756 Bitcoin (BTC). Although they were worth $4.5 billion when the news of the theft broke in February 2022, the stolen money were only worth about $3.6 billion at the time of the seizure. The aforementioned sum is once more valued at $3.6 billion based on current market prices.
The pair was accused by the prosecution of conspiring to defraud the USA and to engage in money laundering. The maximum possible punishments for these offences are 20 years in prison and 5 years in prison, respectively.
According to Reuters, prosecutors now want to force Morgan and Lichtenstein to forfeit assets worth nearly $3 billion, depending on the current spot prices of various cryptocurrencies. By the way, in addition to cryptocurrency, the desired property includes gold cash that has been “excavated and recovered by law enforcement” in California.
Morgan and Lichtenstein continued to be seen in public. The online rap-hop persona “Razzlekhan” belonged to Morgan. In addition to operating a YouTube channel as a beginning magician, Lichtenstein carried out the role of a serial entrepreneur.
Due of the couple’s eccentric personal lives and suspected high-profile crimes, Netflix has announced a collection focusing primarily on the two individuals. The introduction of that collection is still pending.
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