Netflix has announced that it will be streaming a new documentary series based on the New York couple who have been accused of laundering cryptocurrency.
Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, were arrested on Tuesday (8 February) on charges of conspiring to launder billions of dollars in cryptocurrency that was stolen in a 2016 hack of a virtual currency exchange.
The stolen cryptocurrency, valued at 71 million dollars (£52 million) at the time of the theft, is now valued at 4.5 billion dollars (£3.3 billion), officials said.
Prosecutors say Lichtenstein and Morgan, who have been dubbed as the 'crypto Bonnie and Clyde', relied on a series of sophisticated techniques to receive stolen bitcoin into a digital wallet they controlled and to conceal the transactions and hide the movement of the money.
Millions of dollars of the transactions were cashed out through bitcoin ATMs and to purchase gold and non-fungible tokens as well as more mundane items such as Walmart gift cards used for personal expenses, lawyers added.
Now a press release from Netflix says that it is ordering a new docuseries which will be directed by the same person that brought FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and Tiger King to our screens.
The release reads: "Netflix has ordered a documentary series about a married couple’s alleged scheme to launder billions of dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency in the biggest criminal financial crime case in history."
It goes on: "Ilya 'Dutch' Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan were arrested in their New York City apartment on Tuesday, February 8, and now face charges of conspiring to launder nearly 120,000 Bitcoin tied to the 2016 hack of a virtual currency exchange.
"As the value of the stolen Bitcoin soared from $71 million at the time of the hack to nearly $5 billion, the couple allegedly tried to liquidate their digital money by creating fake identities and online accounts, and buying physical gold, NFTs, and more – all while investigators raced to track the money’s movement on the blockchain."
Chris Smith (FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, Tiger King) is set to direct and executive produce along with executive producer Nick Bilton (Fake Famous, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road).
We're expecting big things, so no pressure!
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