Heather Morgan is free, for now. The 31-year-old fraudster was offered bail on Valentine’s Day, releasing her from incarceration while her husband, Ilya “Dutch” Liechtenstein, remains in federal bondage.
Morgan is at the centre of a psychedelic cryptocurrency saga, that began when the pair were arrested on suspicion of laundering $4.5bn worth of stolen bitcoin. That money was originally pilfered from a Hong Kong-based crypto exchange firm called Bitfinex, and it breaks the record for the most digital currency that’s ever been seized by a criminal sting operation. (The pair allegedly spent the money on NFTs, gold and a Walmart gift card.) It’s the first major crime saga of the Web3 era – Blockchain noir, ripe for a Safdie Brothers film – and each twist in the storyline is more implausible than the last.
