According to TechFlow, on December 19, Ilya Lichtenstein, who was arrested in 2022 for stealing 120,000 bitcoins from Bitfinex, released a five-minute video on the X platform, which was his first public statement since his arrest in 2022. He denied the speculation in the Netflix documentary that his father was involved in the theft and might be related to Russian spy agencies, emphasizing that the multi-billion dollar theft was entirely carried out by him alone.
According to a report by the U.S. Department of Justice in August 2023, Lichtenstein used advanced hacking techniques to hack into the Bitfinex system and transferred 119,754 bitcoins through more than 2,000 fraudulent transactions. At present, law enforcement agencies have recovered approximately 95,000 stolen bitcoins and related assets, totaling approximately US$3.6 billion, and approximately US$475 million in assets have been recovered. Lichtenstein expressed deep regret in his statement and promised to continue to cooperate with the plea agreement to recover all stolen assets until the last satoshi.
