Ilya Lichtenstein Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for Role in Bitfinex Hack

Ilya Lichtenstein, a 35-year-old programmer, was sentenced to 5 years in jail for his half in laundering Bitcoin stolen from the Bitfinex crypto change.

The U.S. Division of Justice (DOJ) introduced the sentence, marking a major growth in a case involving the theft of almost 120,000 BTC, valued at $71.8 million in 2016 however value over $4.5 billion by the point of his 2022 arrest.

The Bitfinex Hack

In keeping with courtroom documents, the 35-year-old was chargeable for infiltrating Bitfinex’s community utilizing subtle hacking instruments. As soon as inside, he transferred 119,754 BTC from the change to a crypto pockets below his management by executing over 2,000 unauthorized transactions.

Following the hack, Lichtenstein tried to cowl his tracks by eradicating entry credentials and log recordsdata from the Bitfinex community, which may have offered proof to investigators. He later enlisted his spouse, Heather Morgan, to assist him launder the stolen loot.

The DOJ revealed that Lichtenstein and Morgan used a number of strategies to disguise the origins of the stolen cryptocurrency. Amongst these had been the usage of pretend identities to arrange on-line accounts, the deployment of software program to automate transactions, in addition to changing the Bitcoin into different cryptocurrencies, a tactic often called “chain hopping.”

Moreover, the couple deposited parts of the stolen funds into darknet markets and a number of crypto exchanges and later withdrew them into varied accounts to evade monitoring.

In addition they used cryptocurrency mixing companies akin to Bitcoin Fog to anonymize transactions and opened U.S.-based enterprise accounts to make their banking exercise seem authentic. Additional, Lichtenstein and Morgan transformed a number of the cash into gold cash.

Lichtenstein’s Sentencing

The 2016 Bitfinex hack stays one of many largest identified cybercrimes within the digital asset house. Although initially solely suspected of laundering funds, Lichtenstein later confessed to being the hacker behind the breach.

Nonetheless, regardless of his admission, neither he nor Morgan had been charged instantly with executing the exploit. As a substitute, each pleaded responsible on August 3, 2023, to a single rely of conspiracy to commit cash laundering, a cost carrying a most sentence of as much as 20 years in jail.

Following their arrest in February 2022, regulation enforcement traced and recovered roughly $3.6 billion of the stolen Bitcoin. A portion of those funds was returned to the change.

Along with his five-year jail sentence, Lichtenstein will serve three years of supervised launch after his time period. Morgan, in the meantime, is scheduled to be sentenced on November 18.