A federal judge, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, has ordered the pretrial detention for a defendant, Ilya Lichtenstein, arrested on conspiring to launder billions in stolen bitcoin, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday (Feb. 14).
Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, were arrested last week, and a judge ruled that they could receive bond, with restrictions to their parents’ homes being posted as security.
However, Howell said the penalties the two defendants are facing means they might try to flee if released — and Lichtenstein is already familiar with fake personas.
She added their “financial resources could be easily used to facilitate flight” and could be used to evade liability. Howell said Morgan didn’t have as much risk to flee, but the evidence against Lichtenstein in particular, she said, was strong.
The case involved the largest financial seizure ever by the Justice Department. The WSJ reported that last week, authorities took custody of over $3.6 billion in stolen digital currency, which was reportedly linked to the couple.
The couple had reportedly promoted themselves extensively as veteran tech and crypto entrepreneurs.
While the funds were worth around $70 million in 2016 when a hacker breached the platform of Bitfinex, reportedly stealing them through thousands of illicit transactions, and the price has increased much more since then.
According to prosecutors, Lichtenstein’s office contained two hollowed-out books that seemed to have the pages cut out by hand. According to Howell, the evidence against him was a “smoking gun,” saying it “does not get more direct than that.”
PYMNTS wrote about the case earlier in the month, saying the defendants had planned to launder $4.5 billion in stolen crypto.
Read more: Two New Yorkers Arrested for Alleged Conspiracy to Launder $4.5B in Hacked Crypto
In the Bitfinex hack, customer’ money had been lost or stolen in numerous incidents, and they couldn’t secure normal banking relationships.
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