US prosecutors have asked the court to sentence Heather Morgan to 18 months in prison for her role in laundering 119,754 BTC stolen from the Bitfinex exchange in 2016.
In 2022, law enforcement officers detained the spouses involved in the hacking - 34-year-old Ilya Lichtenstein and 31-year-old Morgan. More than 94,000 BTC worth $3.6 billion at the time were seized from them.
The couple were charged with conspiracy to launder money. Authorities said Liechtenstein was directly involved in the attack on the platform, but he denied it.
On August 3, 2023, the husband and wife pleaded guilty to a single count of money laundering. Liechtenstein faces up to 20 years in prison, while Morgan faces a maximum sentence of 10 years. Sentencing is scheduled for November 14 and November 15, 2024, respectively.
The prosecution argued that Morgan's significant sentence reduction was "substantial assistance" in the plea bargain. She was less involved in the crimes than her husband and spent only a "small portion" of the stolen property.
In February 2022, the court released Morgan on $3 million bail. She was subsequently spotted at several crypto conferences, and the community suspected the hacker of collecting information for the government.
Prosecutors also said Morgan initially had no knowledge of how Lichtenstein obtained the bitcoins. But by early 2020, he had admitted responsibility for the hack, and she had begun helping him.
"This was not a momentary indiscretion or an impulsive decision: the defendant knowingly participated in a money laundering conspiracy and a conspiracy to defraud over many years," the statement said.
According to law enforcement, Morgan and Lichtenstein used “various technologically sophisticated methods” to obscure their tracks, including the use of crypto exchanges without KYC procedures, darknet markets, and mixers.
Morgan used some of the stolen funds to buy gold coins, which she buried in a "secret location." Authorities later revealed their location.
In addition to the 18-month sentence, prosecutors asked the court to confiscate the couple's previously seized cryptocurrency assets and property worth a total of $7.6 billion to pay restitution to Bitfinex.
Recall that in October, prosecutors named the exchange as the only claimant to receive compensation for damages from the hack, but acknowledged that there could be other potential victims.
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