Apos;Crocodile Of Wall St apos; And Husband Argue They Are Not A Flight Risk
A lawyer for the self-proclaimed 'Crocodile of Wall Street', Heather Rhiannon Morgan, 31, and darkmarket url her husband Ilya Lichtenstein, 34, claim neither of them are 'flight risks' because Morgan has frozen embryos in the city.
The couple's lawyer, Samson Enzer, has urged a judge to allow them to be freed on $3million and $4.5million bail respectively, saying the fact neither of them fled when given the chance upon first being alerted to the investigation, proves they would not run from the law if now freed on bail.
Prosecutors are urging caution: It is believed the couple still have vast sums of money at their disposal which is likely hidden from authorities.
Furthermore, Lichtenstein has dual citizenship with giving the couple a possible safe haven from which it would be particularly difficult for U.S. authorities to secure an extradition order should the couple choose to flee.
The pair, dubbed 'Bitcoin Bonnie and Crypto Clyde' by financial newsletter Morning Brew, were both arrested on Tuesday on federal charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States for allegedly laundering $4.5billion in stolen in the 2016 Bitfinex exchange hack.
If convicted, they face up to a maximum of 25 years in prison.
A lawyer for the self-proclaimed 'Crocodile of Wall Street', Heather Rhiannon Morgan, 31, and her husband Ilya ' Dutch ' Lichtenstein, 34, right, has urged a judge to allow them to be freed on $3million and $4.5million bail respectively
Prosecutors argued that the pair, who live on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, should be denied bail, calling them flight risks who still potentially have access to vast sums of money.
Lichtenstein, is a dual US-Russian national from Illinois, while Morgan hails from California.
The couple's lawyer claims the couple want to start a family and would not run away from her fertilized eggs.
'Morgan previously froze several of her embryos at a hospital in New York in anticipation of starting a family together, as she can only conceive through in vitro fertilization because she suffers from endometriosis,' the couple's lawyer Samson Enzer wrote in a filing.
In this courtroom sketch, attorney Sam Enzer, center, sits between Heather Morgan, left, and her husband, Ilya 'Dutch' Lichtenstein, in federal court on Tuesday
'The couple would never flee from the country at the risk of losing access to their ability to have children, which they were discussing having this year until their lives were disrupted by their arrests in this case,' Enzer explained.
Federal law enforcement officials said they have recovered roughly $3.6 billon in cryptocurrency - the Justice Department's largest ever financial seizure - linked to the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange based in Hong Kong, darkmarket Link whose systems were breached nearly six years ago.
Enzer also attempted to explain how well behaved his clients had been since they were alerted of the investigation into them.
'Both stayed put in their residence in lower Manhattan ... even after the government's investigation targeting them in this case' several months ago.
The couple say they have no intention of fleeing because Morgan has frozen embryos stored in New York because the pair had intentions to start a family
The court filing comes just days before the couple's next scheduled bail hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, dark market link darknet market list D.C., on Monday.
Judge Beryl Howell will then make a determination on what is best for the pair while they await trial.
On Thursday, Judge Howell ordered the pair to be brought to Washington for next week's hearing.
Enzer pleaded with Judge Howell for her to stick with the agreements already made with Manhattan federal court Judge Debra Freeman.
Freeman had set bond at $5 million for Lichtenstein and $3 million for Morgan together with added conditions of home incarceration and location-monitoring devices.
But the bail ruling was ultimately blocked after Judge Freeman took notice of pdark web market urls of convoluted blockchain-and cryptocurrency-tracing assertions,' he added.
Enzer also stressed that the couple needed to be kept out of jail in order to prepare a defense for their trial and noted how Morgan suffers from various medical conditions including surgery to remove a lump in her breast and 'pre-existing lung damage from a prior bout of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS,' which put her at increase risk for catIn one set of lyrics, Morgan can be heard rapping about the scheme she is alleged to have carried out.
'Spearfish your password / all your funds transferred,' she says.
'Always be a GOAT, not a god damn sheep,' she states in another.
'Spirit of a revolutionary, power of a dictator / love to be contrary, but I'm fly like a gator,' the rap continues in the low-budget looking video.
They don't get much better in another riff: 'Yes that was cheesy/at least I'm not sleazy,' she proclaims as her alter-ego named Razzlekhan.
In one song, 'Moon 'n Stars,' she raps about her husband calling him a a 'weirder version of Larry David' sampling him saying, 'I love you, I support you, but I don't wanna be involved.'
A picture of Heather Morgan, also known as 'Razzlekhan,' on a phone in front of the Bitcoin logo
On her website, Morgan calls herself 'Razzlekhan' or the 'Versace Bedouin' -- 'the raunchy rapper with more pizzazz that Genghis Khan.'
'I'm a real risk taker/pirate riding the flood/I'm a badass money maker,' she raps in one video in which she refers to herself as the 'Crocodile of Wall Street.'
'Come real far but don't know where I'm headed/Blindly following rules is for fools,' she says, gyrating on Wall Street wearing sunglasses, a leopard print scarf, and shiny gold jacket.
'Her art often resembles something in between an acid trip and a delightful nightmare,' Morgan wrote about herself on her website, Razzlekhan.com. 'Definitely not for the faint of heart or easily offended.
'Razz likes to push the limits of what people are comfortable with,' she said. 'Her style has often been described as 'sexy horror comedy.
In total, there are about a dozen songs covering all manner of topics including one where the raps about smoking weed in a cemetery and a timely rap about social distancing in 'High in the Cemetery.'
In the track 'Cutthroat Country' she raps about phishing people's passwords. 'All your funds transferred,' she states.
Other songs discuss the American healthcare system and its flaws and how fake friends suck 'like a vacuum cleaner' in the song of the same name.
She adopts a freestyle rapping in another track about investing in GameStop, Ethereum, and Bitcoin.
Reviews of her rapping don't present her in the most positive light but her library is still available online
Lichtenstein and Morgan are thus far not charged directly with perpetrating the hack, but rather with receiving and laundering the stolen funds
Morgan and her husband are accused of conspiring to launder 119,754 bitcoin that was stolen, after a hacker attacked Bitfinex and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions
According to Morgan's videos and Facebook postings, she grew up in California, the daughter of a biologist and a high school librarian.
She graduated from the University of California, Davis, and went to work as an economist after doing graduate work at the American University in Cairo.
Morgan said she eventually became a 'serial software entrepreneur who started multiple successful companies' including one called SalesFolk.
More discreet online, Lichtenstein described himself on LinkedIn as a 'technology entrepreneur, coder and investor' and the founder of several tech companies.
In a Facebook post, he recalled how he proposed to Morgan -- 'my best darknet marketsbest darknet markets friend and the woman of my dreams!'
It involved what Lichtenstein called a 'weird, creative multi-channel marketing campaign' that saw posters of 'Razzlekhan' plastered across New York City and her face on a Times Square billboard.
In one YouTube video, Morgan said her parents 'didn't have a lot of money.'
'I've also been totally broke and homeless multiple times,' she said. 'Money comes and goes. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't.
'It's really nice when you have it but nothing in this life is certain,' she said. 'Right now I'm basically living my ideal life.'
Morgan describes herself as 'an expert in persuasion, social engineering, and game theory'
Morgan, who raps under the name Razzlekhan, (seen in front of Federal Hall on Wall Street in a music video) declared herself the 'Crocodile of Wall Street' in one of her rap songs
Lichtenstein is a citizen of both and the United States and the co-founder of an online marketing firm. Morgan, a rapper and former Forbes contributor, describes herself as 'an expert in persuasion, social engineering, and game theory'.
The August 2016 Bitfinex hack itself was one of the largest crypto heists ever recorded - so massive that news of the theft knocked 20 percent off Bitcoin's value at the time.
Lichtenstein and Morgan are thus far not charged directly with perpetrating the hack, but rather with receiving and laundering the stolen funds. The case was filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C.
The couple is accused of conspiring to launder 119,754 bitcoin that was stolen, after a hacker attacked Bitfinex and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions.
The couple is accused of conspiring to launder 119,754 bitcoin that was stolen, after a hacker attacked Bitfinex and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions'
The complaint alleges, the FBI and federal prosecutors were able to trace the movement of Bitcoin from this hack,' said Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
He added that the money moved through a major darknet market exchange tied to a host of crimes, as well as cryptocurrency addresses tied to child sexual abuse materials.
Lichtenstein and Morgan are facing charges of conspiring to commit money laundering, as well as to defraud the United States.
Prosecutors said on Tuesday the illegal proceeds were spent on a variety of things, from gold and non-fungible tokens to 'absolutely mundane things such as purchasing a Walmart gift card for $500.'
The August 2016 Bitfinex hack itself was one of the largest crypto heists ever recorded - so massive that news of the theft knocked 20 percent off Bitcoin's value
Bitfinex said in a statement that it was to working with the Department of Justice to 'establish our rights to a return of the stolen bitcoin.'
'We have been cooperating extensively with the DOJ since its investigation began and will continue to do so,' the company said.
Bitfinex said it intends to provide further updates on its efforts to obtain a return of the stolen bitcoin as and when those updates are available.
Tuesday's criminal complaint came more than four months after Monaco announced the department was launching a new National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which is comprised of a mix of anti-money laundering and cybersecurity experts.
Cyber criminals who attack companies, municipalities and individuals with ransomware often demand payment in the form of cryptocurrency.
In one high-profile example last year, hackers caused a widespread gas shortage on the U.S. East Coast when by using encryption software called DarkSide to launch a cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline.
The Justice Department later recovered some $2.3 million in cryptocurrency ransom that Colonial paid to the hackers.
Cases like these demonstrate that the Justice Department 'can follow money across the blockchain, just as we have always followed it within the traditional financial system,' said Kenneth Polite, assistant attorney general of the department's Criminal Division.
Morgan is seen rapping with the New York Stock Exchange behind her to the right
Justice Department officials say that though the proliferation of cryptocurrency and virtual currency exchanges represent innovation, the trend has also been accompanied by money laundering, ransomware and other crimes
'Today´s arrests, and the Department's largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,' Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement.
'In a futile effort to maintain digital anonymity, the defendants laundered stolen funds through a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions. Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the department once again showed how it can and will follow the money, no matter the form it takes.'
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