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A Crucial Clue in the $4.5 Billion Bitcoin Heist: A $500 Walmart Gift Card
U.S.
A Crucial Clue in the $4.5 Billion Bitcoin Heist: A $500 Walmart Gift Card
Increasingly sophisticated tools and some gift cards helped lead investigators to charge a young couple with conspiring to launder billions
By James Fanelli, Ben Foldy and Dustin Volz
james.fanelli@wsj.com
ben.foldy@wsj.com
https://twitter.com/dnvolz
dustin.volz@wsj.com
Feb. 15, 2022 3:29 pm ET
Federal investigators spent years hunting for clues in the 2016 hacking of the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange, when thieves stole bitcoin now worth $4.5 billion. In the end, what helped lead them to two suspects was something much more quotidian: a $500 Walmart gift card.
That card and more than a dozen others like it, including for Uber , Hotels.com and PlayStation, were linked to emails and cloud service providers belonging to a young Manhattan couple, Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein and Heather R. Morgan, according to a criminal complaint. Authorities arrested the couple after seizing $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin allegedly in their control—the Justice Department’s largest financial seizure ever.
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A Crucial Clue in the $4.5 Billion Bitcoin Heist: A $500 Walmart Gift Card
Increasingly sophisticated tools and some gift cards helped lead investigators to charge a young couple with conspiring to launder billions
By James Fanelli, Ben Foldy and Dustin Volz
james.fanelli@wsj.com
ben.foldy@wsj.com
https://twitter.com/dnvolz
dustin.volz@wsj.com
Feb. 15, 2022 3:29 pm ET
Federal investigators spent years hunting for clues in the 2016 hacking of the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange, when thieves stole bitcoin now worth $4.5 billion. In the end, what helped lead them to two suspects was something much more quotidian: a $500 Walmart gift card.
That card and more than a dozen others like it, including for Uber , Hotels.com and PlayStation, were linked to emails and cloud service providers belonging to a young Manhattan couple, Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein and Heather R. Morgan, according to a criminal complaint. Authorities arrested the couple after seizing $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin allegedly in their control—the Justice Department’s largest financial seizure ever.
TO READ THE FULL STORY
SUBSCRIBE
SIGN IN