The Lingering Mystery of the Rapper Who Allegedly Laundered $1B in Bitcoin

CYBER

VICE

Tech News, News & Politics, Technology, News

4 • 645 Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2016, someone hacked the crypto exchange Bitfinex and made off with 120,000 BTC. At the time, the bitcoins were worth $65 million. Now they’re worth around $5 billion.

On February 7, authorities in the U.S. arrested Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan. The charge? Allegedly the couple laundered around $1 billion in stolen Bitcoin. As news of the charges spread, journalists began to dig into the couple and discovered that Morgan was extremely online. A wannabe rapper, Morgan has posted dozens of YouTube videos, TikToks, and contributed to Forbes.

Here to talk about the hack, the charges, and Morgan’s outsized personality we’ve got Motherboard senior staff writer Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Motherboard Senior Editor Jordan Perason.

Morgan’s output is embarrassing, but it’s also a distraction from the very real crimes her and her husband have been charged with. Pearson and Franceschi-Bicchierai unpack the central mysteries that still linger on the case. The feds have seized the Bitcoin but haven’t charged the couple in the hack and there’s still so many questions about what happened in 2016.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's got the code it's going to launch.
0:09.3	It's a unit system.
0:11.6	I know this.
0:13.6	It's all the files of the whole park.
0:15.8	It tells her everything.
0:17.6	Sir, he's uploading the virus.
0:20.3	Eagle One. The package is being delivered.
0:23.4	Hello out there in cyberspace.
0:25.0	I'm sorry, we will play the song again.
0:26.8	I know everyone was very excited to hear a bunch of that, but I've heard it quite a bit,
0:31.3	and I can only take so much at a time right now.
0:34.2	So on February 7th authorities in the U.S. arrested Ilya Liechtenstein and his wife,
0:38.8	Heather Morgan, the charge allegedly the couple laundered $1 billion and stolen Bitcoin.
0:45.5	And as news of the charges spread, journalists began to dig into the couple and, good lord,
0:52.5	Morgan was extremely online. A wannabe rapper and influencer, Morgan shared
0:57.4	every moment of her life on Instagram and YouTube. You just heard some of her rap game and it's
1:02.4	a lot. Here to talk about the hack, the charges, and Morgan's outsized personality. We've got
1:09.0	Motherboard Senior Staff writer Lorenzo Franceschi Bicari and Motherboard
1:12.5	Senior Editor Jordan Pearson.
1:14.8	Thank you, everyone, for joining us.
1:17.1	I'm Matthew Galt, and this is Cyber.
1:20.5	Jordan, Lorenzo, once again, the crypto duo.
	...

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