Spouse of Russian convicted in US sentenced to 1.5 years in prison

The wife of convicted in the United States Russian Ilya Lichtenstein Heather Morgan received 18 months in prison for assisting her husband. This was reported by The Washington Post (WP) on November 19.

"Morgan, who worked under the pseudonym Razzlekhan, was sentenced Monday by a federal court to 18 months in prison for helping her husband launder 120,000 bitcoins he admitted he stole from the Bitfinex international exchange in 2016," the publication said.

The woman pleaded guilty to a charge of money laundering in collusion with her husband.

Earlier, on November 15, Lichtenstein was sentenced to five years in prison in the case of bitcoin laundering.

Ilya Lichtenstein, along with his wife Heather Morgan, was arrested in New York City in early 2022 on charges of conspiracy to launder billions of dollars in bitcoins stolen in the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. According to the prosecution, about 119,754 bitcoins, or about $8 billion at current exchange rates, were stolen from the exchange as a result of the cyberattack.

In February 2022, lawyer Arkady Buch said Lichtenstein could have faced a life sentence. Russian Consul General in New York Sergei Ovsyannikov said that neither Liechtenstein nor his lawyer had asked diplomats for help.

At the same time, Izvestia learned that Lichtenstein, accused of stealing bitcoins, often called himself by the name of a fraudster from the TV series "White Collar" - Dach (Dutch). According to the plot of the series, Duch also lives in New York City, as do the couple. According to the clerks at the local cafeteria, Ilya and Heather were unremarkable customers.