Couple behind 'biggest ever Bitcoin heist' would be worth staggering amount in 2024
Netflix’s newest documentary Biggest Heist Ever details the story of, well, exactly what it says on the tin: the biggest heist ever.
This didn’t involve balaclavas, getaway cars, or stealing schematics from a bank, but rather, a pair of hackers who were referred to as the ‘Bitcoin Bonny and Clyde’.
The couple, who are actually called Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, were arrested in 2022 for laundering $4.5 billion in Bitcoin in a hack committed in 2016.
Lichenstein used sophisticated tools to steal 120,000 bitcoins from the Bitfinex exchange in 2016, which was worth $70 million at the time they hacked the site.
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By the time this was seized, it had increased more than 60-fold, and if they hadn’t been caught, they would be worth even more now.
Morgan was an aspiring rapper by the name of Razzlekhan, and the couple are married.
Lichenstein was given five years in prison, and Razzlekhan was given an 18-month sentence.
In the lyrics of her music videos, Razzlekhan called herself the ‘crocodile of Wall Street’.
Despite this, the hackers were caught.
While they had initially got away with it by spending the money on Gold, NFTs, Uber, and a Playstation, they tipped off the authorities by transferring stolen funds into Walmart vouchers.
When they spent them, this allowed police to link it back to the Bitfinex exchange.
If they hadn’t made this cock-up, however, they would be worth far, far more than the $70 million they stole back in 2016.
Bitcoin is worth far more today than it was in 2016 when they committed the hack.
Based on the worth of the Bitcoin they stole, Ilya Litchenstein and Heather Morgan would be worth around $9,515,385,433.10.
This would place them just outside the top 250 rich list in the world, and that is excluding other business ventures.
Some Bitcoin predictions have said that the cost of a single coin may soar to $120,000 in the new year, which would take their net worth all the way up to $14,400,000.
Alas, the couple just had to go to Walmart, and got caught in the process.
Biggest Heist Ever is set to release tomorrow, December 6, with the synopsis: “Their crimes earned them the nickname Bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde — and the story only gets weirder in this documentary about the most lucrative heist ever.”
One comment on the trailer for the show read: “With countless rug pulls and crypto thefts, it's good to see some content and behind the scene stories of some of them.”
Biggest Heist Ever streams on Netflix Friday, December 6.
Michael Slavin