Heather Morgan and her husband Ilya Lichtenstein were charged with money laundering and fraud after the seizure of £3.7 billion in allegedly stolen Bitcoin
(Picture: Instagram)A GROWING number of cyber criminals have amassed small fortunes in cryptocurrency as hacks and scams proliferate.
A new report from Chainalysis identified 4,068 criminal “whales”, each of whom owns over $1 million worth of stolen cryptocurrency.
These whales — crypto slang for online wallets with large holdings — have amassed $25 billion in stolen or scammed cryptocurrency between them.
These criminal accounts now make up 3.7% of all the whale wallets.
Data analysts Chainalysis found crypto crime hit a new all-time high in 2021. $14 billion of funds were linked to illicit activity, up 79% on 2020’s total.
The billions in stolen and scammed cryptocurrency were mostly taken through a combination of ransomware scams and hacks.
Russia was the source of most ransomware attacks. $400 million-worth of stolen cryptocurrency was traced back to criminals working in the country last year.
Chainalysis said hacks from cyber criminals in North Korea jumped from four in 2020 to seven in 2021. The value extracted in these hacks grew by 40%.
The report said: “In cryptocurrency, everything is saved on the blockchain for all to see and the investigation of criminal whales represents a major opportunity for government agencies around the world to continue their string of successful seizures, and bring to justice the biggest beneficiaries of cryptocurrency-based crime.”
Crypto crime has been in the spotlight after the recent arrest of Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein in New York last week.
The husband and wife duo were charged with money laundering and fraud after the seizure of £3.7 billion in allegedly stolen bitcoin linked to a 2016 hack.
Morgan, who sidelines as a rapper called Razzlekhan, and her husband have been accused of using fake identities to convert bitcoin into other digital currencies and allegedly spending five years laundering the funds.
