PANews reported on October 16 that according to Bloomberg, U.S. prosecutors recommended to the judge that Ilya Lichtenstein, the mastermind of the largest cryptocurrency theft in history, should be sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering conspiracy involving the $6 billion Bitfinex exchange hack in 2016. According to the government in court documents on Tuesday, Lichtenstein, who pleaded guilty last year, should serve more time in prison than his rapper wife and accomplice Heather Morgan.

Last week, prosecutors said Morgan, the rapper who calls himself "Wall Street Crocodile," should be sentenced to 18 months in prison. Prosecutors said Lichtenstein fit the profile of a young cybercriminal whose online activities "have become normalized to the extent that they trivialize the impact on their victims." "A tough sentence in this case will help break that cycle," government lawyers told a federal judge in Washington.

Prosecutors did not ask for the maximum sentence for Lichtenstein, taking into account his cooperation in other criminal cases. Earlier this year, he testified in the government's case against the Bitcoin Fog mixing service for money laundering. They will be sentenced in November.