A notorious crypto hacker’s wife — who rapped under the name Razzlekhan and styled herself as the “Crocodile of Wall Street” — was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday for helping her husband launder stolen bitcoin now worth $10 billion.
Heather Morgan, 34, was handed the sentence by a federal judge in Washington, DC – just days after her spouse, Ilya Lichtenstein, got five years in prison for swiping 119,754 bitcoin from the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange in 2016.
Morgan and Lichtenstein both pleaded guilty last year.
Lichtenstein, 35, had claimed Morgan wasn’t involved in the hack, but only helped hide the stolen bitcoin.
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At Morgan’s urging, he agreed to cooperate with authorities on other cases of stolen cryptocurrency in exchange for reduced sentences for both of them.
Morgan and Lichtenstein engineered a complex scheme to launder stolen cryptocurrency using fictitious names and moving the funds in small increments so as not to arouse suspicion, according to court records.
The two were arrested at their luxury high-rise apartment on Wall Street in February 2022 – when the stolen bitcoin was worth $71 million.
The digital currency has soared in recent weeks to all-time highs – meaning that the loot today would be worth more than $10 billion dollars.
Prosecutors alleged that the “bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde” laundered 21% of the coins that they stole from the Hong Kong-based exchange.
At his sentencing last week, Lichtenstein expressed remorse for “wasting my talents on crime instead of a positive contribution to society”
He got credit for the two years and nine months that he has spent in jail since his February 2022 arrest.
Lichtenstein had pleaded with the judge to spare his wife from having to go to prison, blaming himself for her involvement.
“I want to take full responsibility for my actions and make amends any way I can,” said Lichtenstein, adding he hopes that he can apply his expertise to fight cybercrime when he gets out of prison..
Lichtenstein said he told his wife about the hack about three years later, but he initially solicited her help in laundering the proceeds “without explaining exactly what he was doing,” according to prosecutors.
Morgan “was certainly a willing participant and bears full responsibility for her actions, but she was a lower-level participant,” prosecutors wrote.
“Neither the hack nor the laundering scheme was an impulsive decision. The defendant (Lichtenstein) spent months attempting to gain access to Bitfinex’s infrastructure and get the accesses and permissions he needed in order to orchestrate his hack.”
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