Move over Money Heist. It's time to meet the Bitcoin Heist Couple.
The couple, who is accused of laundering bitcoin worth billions of dollars, was recently caught. And all it took was a gift card, and that too of a small amount like $500, that led to their arrest. If you too are wondering how then read on as we unfold this real-life story for you.?
To give you a background about this case, the couple, Ilya Lichtenstein, aged 34, and his wife Heather Morgan, aged 31, have been arrested for swindling money from the exchange.
They had allegedly conspired to launder cryptocurrency when back in 2016, it was stolen during the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange platform.?
The stolen Bitcoins¡¯ value now is worth almost $4.5 billion, as per a CNBCTV18 report.
The couple is accused of laundering Bitcoin using numerous criminal techniques like usage of fake IDs, coding computer programs to make quicker automated transactions, besides depositing stolen funds across one crypto exchange in multiple accounts in order to cover up previous transactions.?
And that's not all. They are also accused of converting Bitcoin to other forms of cryptocurrency and creating US-based business accounts to wire funds as well.
Also Read:?Meet The Dutch 'Bitcoin Family' Who Emigrated To 'Bitcoin Heaven' Portugal For Tax-Free Crypto
The Wall Street Journal reported that the court documents of the case show how federal agents used sophisticated software tools to search for connections and patterns using a process called ¡®cluster analysis¡¯. A particular cluster of Bitcoin addresses, identified as 36B6mu, is what had caught investigators¡¯ attention.
It was on May 3, 2020, that a fraction of a Bitcoin was sent from the cluster to an exchange that sells prepaid gift cards. It was found out that a $500 gift card for Walmart was sent in exchange for a Russian-registered email. However, the transaction was conducted via an IP address linked to a cloud service provider in New York. Then, investigators linked the address to the main accused Lichtenstein.
According to the criminal complaint, as mentioned in CNBCTV18, the couple, Morgan and Lichtenstein, had purportedly spent the proceeds from their laundering scheme on various purchases, including a $500 Walmart gift card, gold coins and NFTs.
Then a portion of the $500 gift card was redeemed through Walmart¡¯s phone app. And as per the court filings, three purchases were made using Morgan¡¯s name from one of her emails and the couple¡¯s apartment address in New York was provided for delivery.?
That gift, as well as more than a dozen other cards for services like Uber, Hotels.com and PlayStation, were traced back to the pair, The Wall Street Journal reported.
On January 31st 2022, investigators were able to access Lichtenstein¡¯s email and cloud account and break the encryption for several of the files, wherein they found a spreadsheet listing various accounts, including some of those that had been abandoned when exchanges asked for identity verification.
Another folder named ¡®personas¡¯ and ¡®passport ideas¡¯ had fake identification documents. They also found a file containing all of the addresses within the digital wallet where most of the Bitcoins that had been stolen from Bitfinex were being kept.
Earlier on January 5th 2022, federal agents had raided the couple¡¯s Wall Street apartment, and as per?The Wall Street Journal report, the law enforcement agents seized more than $40,000 in cash from the apartment, besides seizing more than 50 electronic devices and a plastic bag marked ¡®burner phone,¡¯ as per what prosecutors said in court filings.
Also Read:?Uber Is 'Absolutely' Going To Look At Accepting Crypto Payments, Says CEO
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