After six months of radio silence, alleged Bitcoin launderer Heather “Razzlekahn” Morgan has declared that she no longer has any involvement in cryptocurrencies or non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
In her first tweet since 6th of February this year, Morgan stated with unequivocal belief that “any crypto or NFT project that bears my name or image is a scam that I do not support.”
Before her run in with the law, Morgan was also known for rapping under the pseudonym Razzlekahn, her work as Forbes contributor, and in the cybersecurity field offering advisory services.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) charged Morgan and her husband Ilya Lichtenstein with conspiracy to commit multibillion-dollar money laundering crimes in February 2022 in connection with the infamous 2016 Bitfinex hack.
119,756 Bitcoin (BTC), approximately $72 million, was drained from the exchange via a security breach, and the assets were methodically laundered through multiple marketplaces, including AlphaBay and Hydra, in the years that followed.
The hack was one of the industry’s biggest at the time, second only to Mt. Gox.
Razzlekahn and the Bitfinex hack
An FBI investigation seized the funds in February 2022, when they were worth over $4.5 billion.
FBI alleged that Morgan and Lichtenstein “used a variety of sophisticated money laundering techniques” to avoid financial detection.
These include registering fake identities for online accounts, using computer programs to bulk automate transactions, “breaking up the flow of funds” by spreading deposits across multiple dark web exchanges, and “chain hopping” by transferring Bitcoin to other digital assets, among other techniques.
According to a archiving from the Department of Justice on February 8, money laundering charges to this extent carry a “maximum penalty of 20 years in prison,” while “conspiracy to defraud the U.S. […] has a maximum penalty of five years in prison.”
Lichtenstein and Morgan were arrested and charged, but later released on bail by a federal judge after posting the $8 million fee.
The couple’s case is ongoing, and their fate will be decided by a federal district judge at a yet-to-be-determined trial date.
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