WASHINGTON — A Washington judge halted a decision to grant bail to two people charged with trying to launder billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin stolen in a 2016 hack of the Bitfinex currency exchange.
Late Tuesday, the judge granted an emergency request by the U.S. government to continue to hold Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan in jail while the bail decision is reviewed. “The defendants are sophisticated cyber criminals and money launderers who present a serious risk of flight,” prosecutors said in their filing. The government said that while the majority of the stolen funds have been seized, there are several other virtual currency addresses that the government believes the couple control that hold about 7,506 Bitcoin, valued at more than $328 million.
Lichtenstein and Morgan had been granted bail by a judge in lower Manhattan Tuesday night, after being arrested at 7 a.m. in New York. They face trial in Washington. The U.S. government said it seized about $3.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency from the married couple, the largest financial seizure ever. The two allegedly conspired to launder 119,754 Bitcoin, currently valued at about $4.5 billion, stolen after a hacker breached Bitfinex’s systems.
