New York couple pleads guilty in hack, earns moron of the podcast

In a rare move, a couple in New York may face up to 10 years each for two counts of money laundering among other things.

We have two articles on the topic:

• NYC couple pleaded guilty to money laundering in Bitfinex hack Cyberscoop
• Husband and Wife Plead Guilty to Money Laundering Conspiracy Involving the Hack and Theft of Billions in Cryptocurrency databreaches.net

Law enforcement officials recovered roughly $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency at the time of the arrests — the DOJ’s largest recovery to date — and have seized another approximately $475 million tied to the hack.

Lichtenstein pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and is facing up to 20 years in prison. Morgan pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, each of which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, according to the DOJ.

From Databreaches:

According to court documents, Lichtenstein used a number of hacking tools and techniques to gain access to Bitfinex’s network. Once inside their systems, Lichtenstein was able to fraudulently authorize more than 2,000 transactions in which 119,754 bitcoin was transferred from Bitfinex to a cryptocurrency wallet in Lichtenstein’s control. Lichtenstein then took steps to cover his tracks by going back into Bitfinex’s network and deleting access credentials and other log files that may have given him away to law enforcement. Following the hack, Lichtenstein enlisted the help of his wife, Heather Morgan, in laundering the stolen funds.

Continuing from that article:

As part of their pleas, Lichtenstein and Morgan admitted that Lichtenstein, at times with Morgan’s assistance, employed numerous sophisticated laundering techniques, including using fictitious identities to set up online accounts; utilizing computer programs to automate transactions; depositing the stolen funds into accounts at a variety of darknet markets and  cryptocurrency exchanges and then withdrawing the funds, which obfuscates the trail of the transaction history by breaking up the fund flow; converting bitcoin to other forms of  cryptocurrency, including anonymity-enhanced  cryptocurrency (AEC), in a practice known as “chain hopping”; depositing a portion of the criminal proceeds into cryptocurrency mixing services, such as Bitcoin Fog, Helix, and ChipMixer; using U.S.-based business accounts to legitimize their banking activity; and exchanging a portion of the stolen funds into gold coins, which Morgan then concealed by burying them.

There may be more to the story, including the fact that since there are multiple counts involved, the maximum penalty is 5 years per count. Still, the JRN seems to think that it is not enough, and we know from reading articles like this that the punishment may not necessarily fit the crime.

Your thoughts are welcome.

Read both stories so you can ick up everything and let us know your thoughts.

You complete morons.

Money Laundering may have one behind bars for a maximum of 20 years, while the other may be behind bars for at least 10 years maximum. That paragraph from DataBreaches says:

Lichtenstein pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Morgan pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, each of which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Is this enough?

Have fun with these and welcome to the moron of the podcast!