Razzlekhan and Husband Guilty of Bitcoin Launder (bbc.com) 45
A husband and wife cyber-crime team have pleaded guilty to trying to launder $4.5bn of Bitcoin that he had stolen in a hack in 2016. From a report: Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein were arrested last year in New York after police traced their riches back to the crypto heist. While evading police, Morgan masqueraded as a rapper and tech entrepreneur. As part of a plea deal, Lichtenstein admitted he was behind the hack. The couple both pleaded guilty to money laundering, but Morgan pleaded guilty to an additional count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. In spite of attempting to cover up her crimes, Morgan published dozens of expletive-filled music videos and rap songs filmed in locations around New York, under the name Razzlekhan. In her lyrics she called herself a "bad-ass money maker" and "the crocodile of Wall Street."
In articles published in Forbes, Morgan also claimed to be a successful tech businesswoman, calling herself an "economist, serial entrepreneur, software investor and rapper." But while developing her rapping and tech persona, she and her computer programmer husband were attempting to cash out their fortune stolen from the crypto firm Bitfinex. The couple now face prison sentences with Lichtenstein in line for a possible maximum 20 years in prison and Morgan a possible 10. At the time of their arrest in February 2022, the stash of 119,000 Bitcoins was worth about $4.5bn -- making it the US Department of Justice's largest single financial seizure in its history. When the hack was carried out, the Bitcoins were worth about $71m.
In articles published in Forbes, Morgan also claimed to be a successful tech businesswoman, calling herself an "economist, serial entrepreneur, software investor and rapper." But while developing her rapping and tech persona, she and her computer programmer husband were attempting to cash out their fortune stolen from the crypto firm Bitfinex. The couple now face prison sentences with Lichtenstein in line for a possible maximum 20 years in prison and Morgan a possible 10. At the time of their arrest in February 2022, the stash of 119,000 Bitcoins was worth about $4.5bn -- making it the US Department of Justice's largest single financial seizure in its history. When the hack was carried out, the Bitcoins were worth about $71m.
"Lost" value. (Score:2)
How does one launder pretend money?
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Purchase Walmart gift cards.
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wait until you watch one of her videos ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DIuPPmY9mw You are welcome! :P
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This should be required viewing for anyone dipping their toes into this thread.
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Required viewing indeed. If you can't make it to the end on your first try, gird up your loins and try again.
Re: "Lost" value. (Score:2)
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After seeing her videos I'd add an extra 20 yrs to her sentence
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The headline is accurate, not sure why you're having a fit.
Re:"Lost" value. (Score:4, Informative)
However, Morgan and Lichtenstein’s undoing came when they used the stolen Bitcoin to purchase Walmart vouchers, creating a trail that authorities were able to trace back to the couple’s Manhattan apartment. “Police were able to link the Walmart gift cards back to some of the proceeds of the Bitfinex hack, which then opened up further investigation,” Jonathan Levin, founder of cryptocurrency investigators Chainalysis which was involved in the investigation, told the BBC.
https://gizmodo.com/razzlekhan... [gizmodo.com]
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Oh, look at that, so bitcoin can be traced after all.
Who would have thought.
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Swap it for other goods or services, like any other money laundering operation. Bitcoin was specifically designed to conceal the history and details of the money but still leave it verifiable enough to spend, so these abuses should surprise no one. Expect them to expand tremendously as more conservative banks and brokers take up trading bitcoin, and to do a better job of playing 3-card Monte with the money. Don't expect *any* regulatory enforcement, since Trum p stripped the SEC to the bone, and Hunter Bid
Supergroup: Holmes + Delvey(Sorokin) x Razzlekhan (Score:2)
I can't wait for her to get out of prison and form a supergroup with Elizabeth Holmes, Charlie Javice and Anna Delvey Sorokin!
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Re:The worst crime of all (Score:4, Interesting)
> an additional count of conspiracy to defraud the United States.
That should reduce their sentence. The US government has no claim on taxes from crypto anyway.
Sure it does. If you buy crypto at one price and sell it for a higher price, you have a capital gain. You pay taxes on that gain, whether short term or long term.
In fact, the 2022 IRS tax form [irs.gov] has a specific area for you to report your crypto activities. It's right below your address and above the Standard Deduction.
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Crypto is an empty investment vehicle and its creation and use has nothing to do with the US Federal Government or its GDP. Just because you reside in the country and use electricity you already paid for doesn't mean the government is entitled to 15-50% of your gains.
Re: The worst crime of all (Score:2)
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How did we have our garbage collected before crypto?
Re: The worst crime of all (Score:3)
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You can't tax crypto if it didn't exist. Yet garbage was collected. So your argument, by the application of grade schooler logic, is bullshit.
Re: The worst crime of all (Score:2)
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Nothing makes a person angrier than losing an argument. Like your failed analogy about strip-mining, and your failure to explain it or come up with a real analogy when challenged. And that little tantrum of insults. Now your failure is not understanding the most basic aspects of your own argument.
If you say taxes are needed to collect garbage, and garbage was collected before crypto, then even a toddler can understand that taxing crypto in any way is not necessary for collecting garbage. Do you understand?
H
Re: The worst crime of all (Score:2)
Doesn't Treasury just sell new bonds faster than old ones are redeemed?
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... right until you exchange it for US Dollars, at which point it's classified as income and that's when the IRS starts becoming interested if you reside in the US or earned said income in the US.
Is this what has become of libertarian thought? Paying for vehicles used in my business - including the taxes paid on those vehicles - doesn't magically mean any income derived from using those vehicles suddenly becomes non-taxable under current US law and IRS rules (the things agencies write in response to legis
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Wrong, if you use it to exchange for goods or services you owe capital gains based on what the conversation rate to USD would be, less your cost basis.
You don't have a grasp of even the basics.
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You'd be destroying the country's land.
Next analogy
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Your analogy doesn't compare to crypto mining, which uses electricity, not the Earth itself. You're off the rails and flailing. Next analogy or was that you giving up?
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Re: The worst crime of all (Score:2)
What do I get from all the times the United States has conspired to defraud ME?
Re: The worst crime of all (Score:2)
What about compensation for the jail time due to conspiratorial, fraudulent claims about cannabis?
The original owners (Score:1)
must be rubbing their hands with glee.
Of course, it was once worth even more.
I'm still kicking myself for not buying them at pennies apiece on ebay in 2009.
Patrick Boyle (Score:3)
did a good video about this last year. [youtube.com] his dry wit is hilarious too.
Got themselves on CNBC (Score:2)
I heard about this couple on the American Greed show. She seems like an awful person. He seems to be almost devoid of a personality.