Feds Say NY Bitcoin Heist Couple had ‘Contingency Plan’ to Flee Overseas

By Ellen Cans

Feds are releasing new information about the couple charged with laundering billions of dollars in hacked bitcoins.

Prosecutors say the couple had a “contingency plan” to flee out of the country, and they had fake IDs and bank accounts ready, as per court documents. As reported by the NY Post, tech entrepreneur Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein, 34, who dubbed himself as the “Crocodile of Wall Street”, and Heather Morgan, 31, his girlfriend and an amateur rapper, were arrested last Tuesday for allegedly planning a heist which seemed like it could be “pulled from the pages of a spy novel,” federal prosecutors said. The couple was charged with money laundering in a 2016 stolen bitcoin hack, valued at a whopping $4.5 billion. Feds contend that the couple should stay in custody until the trial, because they still have “highly troubling” access to hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen crypto currencies, and still have connections and financial accounts in Russia and Ukraine.

“Having now been charged and seeing the strength of the case, the defendants’ incentive to flee is dramatically increased,” prosecutors said. “In short, no condition or combination of conditions can reliably ensure the appearance of such sophisticated defendants with the means to flee and ample incentive to do so.” The feds claim that Lichtenstein and Morgan have “access to numerous fraudulent identities and documents purchased on the darknet, and the ability to easily acquire more.” The documents noted that the couple appeared to “have been setting up a contingency plan for a life in Ukraine and/or Russia prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.” The defendants reportedly took a month-long trip to Ukraine in 2019, where they allegedly prepared to live on the lam.

The court documents also highlighted the feds findings in the couple’s New York apartment in a January raid. Feds found: over $40,000 in cash, “a substantial amount of foreign currency”, about 50 electronic devices including cell phones, SIM cards, a bag labeled “Burner Phone”, and “two hollowed-out books” in the apartment. Morgan is also accused of “attempting to interfere with law enforcement’s search of the defendants’ residence by grabbing for and attempting to lock her phone under the pretense of retrieving her cat,” court documents said. The filing also accuses Morgan of portraying herself as “an unwitting bystander” despite her “integral role” in the eccentric scheme.

Morgan and Lichtenstein face up to 25 years in prison, if found guilty in charges of conspiring to launder 119,754 bitcoin, which they allegedly stole when a hacker breached crypto exchange Bitfinex in 2016.