A young couple’s attempts to launder their bitcoin were pretty sophisticated—but they never found a way to make good on the billions of dollars’ worth of loot burning a hole in their digital pocket.
’s picture of fireworks over the Kremlin. Morgan, who is thirty-one, married Lichtenstein last year. Among other pursuits, she is a journalist. In her biography for, which she wrote for until last year, Morgan describes herself as “an international economist, serial entrepreneur, and investor” and “an expert in persuasion, social engineering, and game theory.
The case against Morgan and Lichtenstein, as detailed in the affidavit, describes a big crime followed by a series of frustrations. After the hack of Bitfinex, in 2016, the stolen bitcoin was transferred to an outside wallet. The government has not said that Lichtenstein and Morgan hacked the exchange; they are charged only with laundering the proceeds of the hack.
Launderers must also contend with the fact that coins are traceable. The ledger on which trades occur is immutable. It should always be possible to track stolen loot through its digital footprint. The problem of handling stolen bitcoin is not unlike that of smuggling a Picasso in the trunk of your car. Everybody knows it’s a Picasso because it looks like a Picasso and it’s got Picasso’s signature on it. Stealing the painting is one thing; realizing any monetary gain for it is another.
Morgan and Lichtenstein also allegedly moved coins to AlphaBay, a dark-Web marketplace that was shuttered by police in 2017. You can buy pretty much anything you want using digital currency on the dark Web, and nobody cares where you got your funds. But it seems that the sums Morgan and Lichtenstein were looking to launder were too unwieldy to cash out by buying products. AlphaBay was simply a conduit for the stolen coins.
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