A hacker who pled guilty to a money laundering conspiracy charge in connection with the theft of billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin from a crypto exchange has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Last year, Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, both pled guilty to a conspiracy charge for hacking into the Bitfinex exchange and illegally transferring almost 120,000 Bitcoin from its wallet to their control.
According to court filings, Lichtenstein hacked into the exchange in 2016, “using advanced hacking tools,” and then, along with his wife, attempted to launder the stolen crypto with various sophisticated techniques. These techniques allegedly included creating accounts with fictitious identities, funnelling the stolen crypto through darknet markets and crypto mixing services in an effort to hide its origin, and converting the Bitcoin into other kinds of cryptoassets and gold coins.
At the time of the hack, the stolen Bitcoin was worth about US$72 million. When the U.S. authorities cracked the case in 2022 and recovered the stolen crypto, it was worth approximately US$3.6 billion — and at current prices, it would be valued at more than US$10 billion.
On Thursday, Lichtenstein was sentenced to 60 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Morgan is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 18.