This action represents the largest financial seizure ever made by the Minister of Justice, said Lisa Monaco, deputy attorney general, adding in a press release that it shows that cryptocurrencies are “not a haven for criminals.”
Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife Heather Morgan, 31, both of Manhattan, are due for their first federal court appearance at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The case was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
The couple are accused of conspiring to launder 119,754 bitcoins that were stolen, after a hacker attacked Bitfinex and initiated more than 2,0000 unauthorized transactions.
Justice Department officials said the transactions were at the time valued at $71 billion in bitcoin, but with the rise in value of the currency, they are now valued at more than $4.5 billion.
“As the complaint indicates, FBI and federal prosecutors were able to trace the movement of bitcoins from this hack,” said Matthew Graves, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
He added that the money transiting through a major darknet exchange links a slew of crimes, as well as cryptocurrency addresses linked to child sex abuse documents.
The criminal complaint filed on Tuesday came more than four months after Monaco announced that the department was launching a new National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, made up of a cross-section of anti-money laundering and cybersecurity experts.
Cybercriminals attacking businesses, municipalities, and individuals with ransomware often demand payment in the form of cryptocurrency.
In a high-profile example last year, former partners and associates of ransomware group REvil caused a widespread gas shortage on the US East Coast when they used encryption software called DarkSide to launch a cyber attack. on the Colonial Pipeline.
The Department of Justice later recovered some $2.3 million in cryptocurrency from the ransom Colonial paid to the hackers.