An American couple accused of laundering billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency stolen from the 2016 hacking of virtual currency exchange Bitfinex have entered into a plea agreement, according to court records from Friday. Heather Morgan, who used the hip-hop alias “Razzlekhan” to push her music online, and her husband Ilya Lichtenstein, are set to appear for a plea hearing on August 3 before Senior Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington. Prosecutors and defense lawyers must file a copy of the plea agreement, which is not publicly available, by July 27.
The couple had active public profiles. Morgan stated on her website that her rap pseudonym “Razzlekhan” referred to Genghis Khan “but with more pizzazz”. In her lyrics, she proclaimed herself a “bad ass money maker” and the “Crocodile of Wall Street”.
It is alleged that the pair conspired to launder over 100,000 bitcoin stolen after a hacker attacked Bitfinex. They each face one count of money laundering conspiracy, with Morgan facing an additional count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. At the time of the hack, the bitcoin was worth $71 million, but has since appreciated to more than $4.5 billion at the time of their arrest. Prosecutors now seek to have the pair forfeit assets worth around $3 billion, according to the charging document and current spot prices of various cryptocurrencies.
Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Marguerita Choy and Richard Chang. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
