All language subtitles for American Greed s15e10 Million Dollar Prison Kickback

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In this episode of American Greed.

Billions of dollars in stolen
cryptocurrency.

Someone's laundering a crypto fortune.

Is it a genius hacker? A state
-sponsored terrorist?

After six mysterious years, the alleged
launderer is unmasked.

This is the craziest story of the day,
so here we go.

Heather Morgan, a businesswoman, social
media influencer, and journalist

with a bizarre alter ego called Russell
Carr.

She thought herself as a real
entrepreneur, making things happen.

Her husband, Elia Lichtenstein, a
budding tech mogul.

He was like an opportunist and a greedy
one.

They've got it all. And they love
nothing more than to flaunt it online.

Ugh!

We called them the Bonnie and Clyde of
crypto.

I'm missing his knuckle.

Yeah, I want to be a mogul. They were
either really brilliant or really

Or just crazy.

The government says this crypto odd
couple laundered $4 .5 billion in stolen

Bitcoin. smashing records.

This is the largest seizure of
cryptocurrency ever by U .S. law

American Greed takes you inside the
investigation and online with the self

-styled crocodile of Wall Street while
the case is still unfolding.

Hey, we have an announcement, an update.
Could she and her husband have razzle

-dazzled one of the boldest?

And strangest digital crimes of all
time. The notion that they could be

laundering $4 .5 billion worth of
Bitcoin blew people's minds.

Cryptocurrency.

A fledgling market of digital coins just
a decade ago that has exploded into a

trillion -dollar industry.

Some people ask, like, is this a new
frontier in finance, or is it some kind

goofy, Beanie Babies -type phenomenon?
And the truth is that it's both. The

overall crypto market broke $2 trillion
this month. The market grows so quickly

that law enforcement can barely keep up.

Cryptocurrency is kind of the Wild West
in terms of regulation.

There's a lot of room for criminal
actors.

In this new frontier of digital
scammers, one of crypto's most notorious

occurs on August 2nd, 2016, when someone
hacks a virtual currency exchange

called Bitfinex.

It was hacked for 119 ,754 Bitcoin.

And this was actually a really startling
event.

Trading on the digital currency exchange
was suspended after that breach was

discovered. The stolen currency is worth
$71 million at the time.

Stealing all those funds is a curse in
many ways because this was obviously a

huge amount and one that was certainly
going to attract the attention of United

States law enforcement.

So who has the skills, guts, or
foolishness to commit such a brazen

The crypto industry boomed despite the
Bitfinex hack, especially in the Bay

Area, where Heather Morgan, who presents
herself like many other young strivers,

dreams of launching the next big thing.

Morgan's come a long way from her humble
Northern California roots in Tehama,

California, a town of 400 people.

Growing up, I did not have a lot of
friends.

She reflects on her childhood in a video
posted on her YouTube channel, one of

nearly a dozen social media accounts.

in which Morgan shares intimate details
of her life. You have 20 kids in the

class, and they've all known each other
from first through eighth grade, and

you're kind of weird and different.

You're going to get bullied mercilessly.
She said that she didn't really ever

fit in.

She had a speech impediment, and
sometimes she would get bullied, and

just didn't have, like, this ambition
that she had.

And I remember thinking, the ocean.

Yeah, it's big, but I'm a shark. I
belong in the ocean, not in a mud puddle

pond. Morgan leaves behind the mud
puddle and has no intentions of ever

returning.

She earns scholarships to the University
of California, Davis, graduating in

just three years with a degree in
economics and international relations.

She documents her travels to Asia and
the Middle East.

And begins collaborating after
graduation with an economics professor

Travis Libert on an academic paper.

She had a very quick mind. She was very
professional, you know, very put

together, very aware of her image, all
in the way that you would expect of an

aspiring young professional.

Though they communicate through Skype
and email, Morgan's ambition cuts

cyberspace. There was kind of a
restlessness to her, always kind of

the next thing.

She saw herself as a real entrepreneur,
as someone who was, like, making things

happen. After their eight -month
collaboration ends, Libra agrees to

Morgan a letter of recommendation to PhD
programs in economics.

But she never takes him up on it.

Looking back, I mean, the one thing that
does stand out is her signature block

had evolved over that brief period, and
under her name was Economist

Entrepreneur Hustler.

Morgan closes the chapter on academia to
pursue more lucrative ventures.

She had basically told a friend, I need
to go home and make money.

So she comes back to Silicon Valley in
the startup entrepreneur space.

Morgan meets a mild -mannered Russian
-born entrepreneur named Ilya Dutch

Lichtenstein. He's almost the polar
opposite of Heather Morgan.

He doesn't seem to want attention.

Nor could their backgrounds be more
different.

Lichtenstein grows up in an affluent
Chicago suburb called Glenview.

His parents had immigrated from Russia
to avoid religious persecution.

Lichtenstein meets Charles Austin in a
computer coding class at Glenbrook South

High School.

I mean, I would say Glenbrook South is a
pretty typical suburban high school

where you have some of like the sort of
John Hughes archetypal tropes of like

jocks, nerds, etc.

We're definitely obviously nerds, right?

We're not football quarterbacks here.

And I think he's sort of underrated as,
like, a funny guy because he was

probably very quiet and kept to himself.

But once you start to, like, get to know
him, it's like, oh, yeah, I really like

this guy. He's cool.

They aren't jocks, but they still like
to have a good time.

Me and whoever was in our, like, lunch
group at the time would just drive over

to my place.

and play poker for, like, 40 minutes,
keep that game set up, and then come

the next day and keep playing until we
finish the game.

There was nothing remarkable about him
as a poker player.

Like, it's not like he was like, oh,
damn, he's running the table.

But again, he just, like, fit right in,
and it was, like, fun to play with him.

Yeah, well, this is something we just
stumbled on here.

Photos of 2006 prom from the very end of
high school.

And it's very funny that the comment on
these two photos from a friend of his

is, Ilya with a date? I don't believe
it.

I skipped prom to play poker, so it's
news to me that he went to it.

Lichtenstein majors in psychology at the
University of Wisconsin and heads to

San Francisco after graduation.

He tries his hand at several fruitless
ventures, including a Ron Paul website

and a brain supplement business.

He also had a couple of other websites
that were sort of in the dating realm,

one called Adult Friend Grinder and
another one called

FindGeekGirls .com.

So my name is Ilya Lichtenstein. I'm the
co -founder of a service called

MixRank. Lichtenstein's fortune improves
when he launches a marketing company

called MixRank, getting seed money from
backers like Mark Cuban.

Lichtenstein's luck changes on the
romantic front, too.

He finds a soulmate in Morgan who shares
his entrepreneurial drive and sense of

adventure. So it seems like they did
start, like, jet -setting pretty soon

they met each other.

There's photos of the two of them
together in, like, a private jet,

the tarmac, him hanging out with a
monkey in Hong Kong.

She has qualities that he doesn't have.
She is more social and outgoing.

You would expect her to be the big
entrepreneur before him because she is

willing to put herself in front of
everybody and, like, make a sort of

out of herself in a way that he never
would.

Morgan channels her wits and moxie into
her own startup, a company called

Salesfolk, that helps businesses craft
cold email pitches.

That was one of the skills that she
seemed to be the proudest of because she

would send cold emails or finesse her
way into connecting with people and

getting what she wanted.

The company motto captures Morgan's
towering ambition.

I mean, it's like comically meme worthy.

Goat is obviously the greatest of all
time.

Clearly, even in fashioning her
branding, she was really leaning into

of underbelly of Silicon Valley that's
like the weirdest, the boldest.

So my first question for you is...
Lichtenstein offers advice to Morgan and

for an interview on her company's
YouTube channel, while she offhandedly

friends a hint of what he may really be
up to.

Heather introduced him as a black hat
hacker.

A black hat hacker is a type of hacker
that pursues exploits with malicious

intent.

So they not only have these wild sides,
but then I think they probably foster

that in each other and sort of feed off
of that.

Morgan posts a testament to her
boyfriend in August 2016.

I will always love getting into trouble
with this crazy guy.

The Bitfinette hack occurs one day
later.

And someone's about to start laundering
all that stolen crypto.

Up next on American Greed, Morgan
unleashes a brash alter ego.

But could her lyrics reveal a little too
much?

It's one of the biggest cryptocurrency
heists ever.

120 ,000 bitcoins, then worth $71
million, drained from accounts in the

virtual currency exchange in August
2016.

The hackers stashed the currency in a
digital wallet, a virtual account

by a set of private keys, like a PIN
code.

Whoever had the private keys, they were
the only person who was going to be able

to do anything with that money inside.

But there's a catch.

All that loot is hiding in plain sight.

Bitcoin was once touted as anonymous,
but every transaction gets permanently

logged on the blockchain, a public
ledger maintained by computer networks.

The strange thing about a cryptocurrency
theft is that you can see that these

120 ,000 bitcoins worth of fortune have
moved into a specific address, but they

don't know who the thieves are. It's
like just beyond their reach.

It's a crime unlike any other Ali
Watkins has covered on the New York

Metro beat.

It was like a huge bank robbery
happened, but then the money just sat

the bank in a locked getaway card. And
no one could touch it. No one could

it. No one could figure out who put it
there in the first place.

And it just sort of had this lore around
it.

A small portion of bitcoins begin
flowing five months after the hack.

Jonathan Levin co -founded Chainalysis,
a company that helps governments and

banks solve high -profile crypto crimes.

Money started to move through lots of
different intermediary wallets, and

ended up going into Alphabay.

Alphabay was a dark web marketplace, so
that's essentially like an Amazon .com,

but for bad things.

You could buy drugs.

stolen credit cards, you could pay for
money laundering services, and you could

even buy poison if you wanted to kill
someone.

It also offered mixing and tumbling
services.

These are services in which you, John
Doe, can send your dirty cryptocurrency

to Alphabay, and Alphabay will then mix
it up with other funds that have been

sent to it.

So it kind of acts, if you imagine,
taking your dirty cash, putting it into

washing machine.

Meanwhile, Heather Morgan and Ilya
Lichtenstein are growing restless.

Morgan struggles to keep sales folk
profitable, while Lichtenstein suddenly

moves on from his startup, MixRank.

The couple exchanges the California
sunshine for Manhattan's bright lights.

Morgan and Lichtenstein rent a $6 ,500 a
month apartment on Wall Street.

She furnishes it with animal pelts and
taxidermy, including a crocodile skull.

Detailing this and nearly every facet of
her life with Lichtenstein on TikTok

and other social media.

This is my current look. What do you
think?

It reminded you of that really quirky
art friend who everybody says has good

taste. but you're afraid to tell them
they actually have really bad taste.

Morgan branches into journalism,
contributing dozens of columns to Inc.

and Forbes.

She just sort of willed herself into
this expert space.

How did she do that? She started writing
as if she was an expert, as if she was

an entrepreneur, as if she was
successful.

I made my own path as being both a
writer, a software entrepreneur.

and creative.

Nearly a year after the Bitfinex hack,
Morgan and Lichtenstein are hardly a

on the Justice Department's radar.

But that's about to change.

Today, the Department of Justice
announced the takedown of the dark web

alpha base.

In July 2017,

Federal authorities shut down Alphabay.

This is the largest dark market web
place takedown in world history.

Law enforcement seizes Alphabay's main
server in Lithuania.

And so suddenly, this thing that had
been a kind of, I don't know, a black

in the middle of the blockchain is in
the hands of the Fed, and they can see

the transactions.

According to a complaint later filed,
the trove of illicit transactions will

lead directly to morgan and lichtenstein
alpha bay offered money laundering

services and the records associated with
his money laundering services may have

played an important role in allowing the
government to connect the stolen

Bitcoin in this case to Ilya
Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan.

I think that when that Alphabet server
ended up in federal law enforcement's

hands, that was probably the beginning
of the end.

I feel like I live in two worlds. But as
the feds close in, Morgan hardly lays

low.

Instead, she announces a new career
after complaining of professional

I think I was pretty unhappy.

So she started rapping as a way to deal
with the burnout.

Morgan creates a shameless alter ego.

She's running all over Wall Street in
these insane outfits.

She's making obscene...

gestures in like very buttoned up areas
of New York and broad daylight.

While Razzlecon apparently shells out
big bucks on rap videos, IRS agents

dissect the blockchain, inching closer
to identifying suspects they believe are

laundering the stolen money in one of
crypto's biggest heists. Not only do

blockchains not lie, no matter how
they're designed.

Cybercrime in general is difficult
because there are little breadcrumbs

left everywhere unless you're the
perfect criminal.

Lichtenstein certainly seems to know his
way around the blockchain.

In March 2018, he forms EndPass, a cyber
company intended to secure

personal assets.

We protect your funds with multiple
layers of security.

You know, they didn't appear to have
much traction.

Their businesses were certainly not ones
that would generate a ton of income.

Morgan and Lichtenstein's companies may
not be earning much, but that doesn't

stop them from jetting off to exotic
locations on a moment's whim.

Their 2019 summer itinerary includes a
month in a place that's not a typical

tourist hotspot, Ukraine.

But are Morgan and Lichtenstein merely
on vacation?

Or up to something far more suspicious.

Up next on American Greed.

The government compares this trip to a
spinoff.

It's been three long years since one of
cryptocurrency's most notorious heists.

Hackers stole nearly 120 ,000 bitcoins
from the Bitfinex virtual currency

exchange and stashed them inside a
digital wallet.

Someone's been laundering the currency
by siphoning a portion through a dark

website called Alphabay.

But that's just one of many tactics
uncovered by the IRS.

Another branch of it, though, that's
more mysterious goes into a

called Monero.

Monero is a secure, private, untraceable
currency.

It is open source, decentralized, and
freely accessible to all.

What we see oftentimes in criminal
investigations is that criminals who are

sophisticated use multiple different
forms of cryptocurrency and sometimes

between different cryptocurrencies in
order to try and obfuscate the flow of

funds. Exchanging one form of crypto for
another is a laundering technique

called chain hopping.

And Monero is generally thought to be
pretty untraceable. The IRS has never

revealed it can trace Monero, but Andy
Greenberg thinks the Bitfinex

investigation may show it can.

And the government reportedly has some
help.

There is an entire industry now of
companies who pull apart these

follow the money.

I would be very surprised if Chainalysis
was not involved in this massive

Bitfinex case.

Chainalysis co -founder Jonathan Levin
declined to comment on whether his

company assisted the government's
investigation.

While authorities say the digital clues
left in the blockchain will eventually

lead to Heather Morgan and Ilya
Lichtenstein's doorstep, the luxury

lavish travel, and elaborate rap videos
displayed in their numerous online posts

reveal a lifestyle that appears to be
far beyond what their small businesses

provide.

And yet, they show no sign of slowing
down.

Lichtenstein announces their engagement
on Facebook that summer.

It's like the most groan -worthy
proposal I can think of.

He describes hiring an advertising
agency to help him propose to my best

and the woman of my dream.

Ilya took Heather Morgan to Times Square
where he had put all of these

billboards up about Rosalcon, who was
clearly this alter ego that meant a lot

her. The proposal doesn't come cheap.

A Times Square billboard can run from $5
,000 up to $50 ,000.

The next month, Morgan delivers a
curious speech at a New York City salon

series, bragging about having the skills
one might need to pull off a crime like

the one the feds are now investigating.

She had a lot of skills of persuasion
and she used them for all kinds of

and purposes. I mean, some of the things
that she was talking about was, you

know, like crashing people's weddings
and stuff like that, or figuring out a

to talk to like a famous person or, you
know, things like that.

Still, a skill is a skill.

The Justice Department later says Morgan
and Lichtenstein weren't simply wedding

crashers. They used their skills to
launder billions of dollars of Bitcoin

stolen from Bitfinex.

The government points to a trip that
Morgan and Lichtenstein took to Kiev,

Ukrainian capital, later that summer.

The government compared this trip to a
spy novel.

It seemed to be kind of their test
balloon of, you know, how can we get

identities delivered?

One package was reportedly delivered to
a hotel from Vladivostok, Russia, on

September 9th.

The Justice Department alleges
Lichtenstein created files with detailed

information about Russian personas the
very next day.

The implication is that they had ordered
fake identity documents to be sent to

them in the Ukraine.

that potentially they could use if they
ever had to flee the United States.

The whole thing is always just a knife's
edge away of either being James Bond

or knockoff Austin Powers.

They were either really brilliant or
really stupid or just crazy.

Back in Manhattan, Morgan and
Lichtenstein resume business as usual.

He launches an investment firm called
Demand Path.

Morgan expands her digital footprint,
pushing content across social media.

Another interesting part about her
Forbes profile is her bio.

She writes, when she's not reverse
engineering black markets to think of

ways to combat fraud and cybercrime, she
enjoys rapping and designing streetwear

fashion. She wrote an article, experts
share tips to protect your business from

cybercriminals. In light of her warning,
Razzlecon's new rap video contains

lyrics that sound rather ironic.

Fishing in general is where someone will
try to get you to hand your password

over to them so that they can, in this
case, transfer your funds.

Rewind that. What? Did you really just
say that? Like, rewind that and play it

again. Make sure we heard that right.

All this

time, the value of the Bitcoin stolen
from Bitman X

soars. from $71 million in August 2016
to nearly $3 .5 billion

in January 2021.

And federal authorities are now
convinced Heather Morgan and Ilya

are the ones laundering the crypto.

Up next on American Greed, Morgan and
Lichtenstein head to the altar with the

feds right on their heels.

Four years after someone began
laundering Bitcoin stolen from the

virtual currency exchange, Heather
Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein seemed to

thriving, at least to friends and family
in their hometowns.

The handful of people that I've kept in
touch with at high school, they

definitely saw him as successful. Like,
this guy is making money and doing his

thing and doing well, yeah.

projecting an image of success on social
media isn't a crime but morgan takes it

to a whole different level but i also
i'm a writer i'm a rapper i designed

streetwear fashion and a bunch of other
stuff with surrealistic art so i right

now am basically living my ideal life
that's it razzle dazzle she does this

gesture a lot like she goes like this a
lot and be sure to razzle dazzle

It's like not a pretty look, and she
loves it.

She, I think, was trying to shock
people. She would talk about gilfs.

Grandmothers, I'd like to. You can fill
in the blank on that.

Grandmother, I'd like to.

Baby grandma, but still the same gimbal.

More nimble than a gimbal.

Telling you delicious, looking so
delicious.

Morgan's constant urge to broadcast
every facet of her life can grate on her

more reserved fiancé.

And in some of the videos, he can seem a
little bit uncomfortable with being on

camera.

I do still

wonder, like, where did that actually
come from? Like, who was

she when nobody was TikToking her?

She was.

really loved by this small group of
friends and people spoke very highly of

said she was a very loyal friend said
she was there for them during some

traumatic life experiences so you wonder
how much of it was just escalated for

clicks and for online attention

I see an individual who seems to be
somewhat detached from reality.

And appears to me to be someone who
would be likely to get involved in

like this.

Their view of the world doesn't quite
match up with...

How others see it. Your real self is
always your best self. Those will stay

awkward and weird.

Morgan and Lichtenstein don't seem to
realize time is running out.

In a government complaint, the IRS shows
how it traced the flow of stolen

Bitfinex Bitcoin through several virtual
currency exchanges and foreign email

addresses.

to financial and business accounts
belonging to Lichtenstein & Morgan,

their company's sales folks, demand
paths, and end paths.

They cast out of about $2 .9 million
worth of the money. As far as I can

think they largely spent it on
themselves.

Investigators connect the laundered
crypto to purchases made in Lichtenstein

Morgan's names for Uber, Hotels .com,
Sony PlayStation, and a $500

Walmart card.

So these were very small expenses, not,
you know, buying expensive cars or

buying a yacht or buying a house, but
rather the types of expenses that are

indicative of someone who's desperate,
who can't actually monetize the large

amount of funds that they have.

It's actually probably easier to just
put stacks of $100 bills in a washing

machine and launder them through a
casino than it is to launder $3 billion

anonymous.

hacked Bitcoin.

The government obtained a search warrant
for Morgan and Lichtenstein's email

accounts in August 2021 while they're
busy planning their wedding.

Hey, we have an announcement.

The fiancés catch wind of the subpoena
in a notice from their internet service

provider.

It didn't seem to concern them because
they go and throw this huge wedding

anyway. This is not your typical
wedding. This is more like a concert, a

festival. Morgan is no blushing bride at
their Los Angeles wedding.

She's carried into the ceremony on a
royal bed and performs one of her

raps.

But their honeymoon is short.

They've been married less than two
months when surprise visitors show up.

Up next on American Greed, the feds hunt
for evidence, and they claim the

crocodile of Wall Street has no
intention of going down without a fight.

They had $40 ,000 worth of cash and
plastic bags with electronics inside,

the bag was labeled Spurner Phone.

One more greed.

Follow us on Instagram, connect on
Facebook, and listen to the American

podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll be right back.

Federal agents execute a search warrant
at Heather Morgan and Ilya

Lichtenstein's apartment on January 5th,
2022.

According to the government, they seize
a trove of evidence implicating the

couple in a scheme to launder stolen
Bitcoin.

They had $40 ,000 worth of cash and
plastic bags with electronics inside,

and the bag was labeled burner phone.

Agents also find two books with
compartments cut into their pages.

They're empty.

But the government suspects this couple
hatched an escape plan and accuses

Morgan of doing whatever she can to
cover their tracks.

And as they're going through this
apartment, Heather goes to get their

Clarissa, get your yellow blue.

As she's going to get the cat from under
the bed, she actually pivots and grabs

her phone and tries to lock her phone.

And they struggled.

They had to, like, wrest it out of her
hand.

The intention, obviously, being that
Heather knew that if she locked the

it would be a lot harder for government
agents to get into it. Federal

authorities are more interested in
encrypted files on Lichtenstein's cloud

storage account.

The government suspects they hold the
keys to solving a six -year -old crime.

Private keys linked to a digital wallet
containing Bitcoins stolen from Bitfinex

in 2016.

The bizarre thing about Bitcoin is that
you can like see the money right there

and you can't do anything with it. You
can't retrieve it until you have those

keys. While the government tries to
decrypt Lichtenstein's files, he and

hire attorneys at a white -shoe law firm
called Cahill.

Despite their legal troubles, Razzleton
keeps on tweeting.

It's very possible that the defendants
believe that that encryption was strong

enough to protect them from any law
enforcement investigation.

And yet the government says it breaks
the encryption on Lichtenstein's files

within weeks.

They find exactly what they're seeking,
according to a criminal complaint, a

list of private keys to the digital
wallet associated with the Bitfinex

The IRS says the wallet still contains
nearly 95 ,000 of the 120 ,000 Bitcoins

stolen from Bitfinex six years earlier.

But that's not all they reportedly find
in Lichtenstein's files.

They found the document of him searching
for Russian and Ukrainian nationalities

in passports.

They found the spreadsheet of all the
crypto accounts and the companies that

they were linked to. And that was the
end.

They really didn't stick that landing of
like, I would never do something like

that. And even I wouldn't be putting
these passwords and stuff on my

Like, come on, man. And I think what
that really shows is the confidence that

they had in their laundering techniques.

They couldn't be identified in the first
place.

Morgan and Lichtenstein strike a united
front in a final selfie on January 31st,

2022, while the government closes in.

Scooping up the 95 ,000 bitcoins in the
digital wallet, the IRS says

Lichtenstein controlled.

Today, the Justice Department announced
it seized billions of dollars in stolen

cryptocurrency.

The value of the Bitcoin taken by the
Justice Department has risen to $3 .6

billion, the largest seizure in its
history.

U .S. authorities making an arrest in an
alleged conspiracy to launder billions

of dollars in stolen cryptocurrency.

Federal agents arrest Morgan and
Lichtenstein a week after seizing the

Bitcoin.

Up next on American Greed.

The Versace better win.

Razzlecon earns worldwide attention, but
not quite the way she had hoped.

The Bitcoin crimes are nothing compared
to calling this rap.

Always be a goat, not a gut.

A massive crypto bust.

31 -year -old Heather Morgan and her 34
-year -old husband, Ilya Lichtenstein,

were arrested in New York this morning.

Just hours after authorities arrest
Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein,

Justice Department announces charges
against them for their alleged roles in

conspiracy to launder stolen
cryptocurrency taken during the 2016

hack. Today, the Department of
Justice... has dealt a major blow to

criminals looking to exploit
cryptocurrency.

The value of the 120 ,000 bitcoins has
ballooned from $71 million at the time

the theft to $4 .5 billion.

This is the largest seizure of
cryptocurrency ever by U .S. law

If convicted, the charges carry a prison
sentence of up to 25 years.

A federal judge in Washington, D .C.
releases Morgan to house arrest on $3

million bond, but orders Lichtenstein
held without bail.

We called them the Bonnie and Clyde of
crypto.

The headlines stunned people who knew
them.

Everyone just started texting each other
who knew him, like, get a load of this

kind of thing. Like, no one expected it
from him. Again, it's kind of like, it's

not surprising that he would be like a
relatively successful guy, but there was

no hint that he was prone to any kind of
criminality.

I think he's not a bad person. I think
he's probably an opportunist and a

one.

Total shock.

Total shock because it was just a
wholesale transformation.

I think I understand that there was
something always inside of her that was

hungry for success and attention and
always kind of looking for an angle.

I would love to understand what the
specific set of incentives were that

her to transform so radically.

The public can't get enough of
Razzlecon.

Parsing every TikTok video, Instagram
post, and YouTube rap.

I'm a bad bitch.

Go on, make me a sandwich.

The Bitcoin crimes are nothing compared
to calling this rap. Bad bitch. Bad

bitch. Bad bitch. The notion that
someone who kind of had such a goofy

media presence.

could be laundering $4 .5 billion worth
of Bitcoin was just something that blew

people's minds.

Gotta say, I've waited for this day.
I've waited for this moment where

has finally generated to my level,
degenerated.

But perhaps one of the most notorious
videos is the fluffy pancakes one.

These are famous pancakes.

Wow, really fluffy. People have been
waiting for years to see who could have

possibly... bin the evil geniuses behind
this. And then the first thing you see

is that video of her having an episode
over pancakes. And the entire internet

was just like, really?

When,

you know, alleged criminals like these
are busted, everybody, especially in the

cybersecurity and the hacker community,
likes to point to them and say, look at

all the mistakes they made. I mean, look
at these buffoons.

You know, they did try.

very sophisticated and rare techniques,
this dark web thing, the use of Monero,

and yet somehow IRS criminal
investigators, and I believe almost

company like Chainalysis, were able to
cut through all of that and follow the

money. The government charges Morgan and
Lichtenstein in a detailed criminal

complaint, but holds off on indicting
them.

The evidence that's laid out by the
government in the complaint shows that

Morgan and Lichtenstein were pretty
deeply involved in the criminal

I would assume that the defense really
want to claim that there are two babes

the woods and they just sort of happened
to get caught.

The complaint accuses Morgan and
Lichtenstein of laundering the stolen

but not the actual hack.

Well, there are a lot of questions here,
including who did the original hack

here back in 2016, leaving open the
possibility that there's more to the

There's some connection there.

You don't just wake up one day and your
crypto wallet is funded with $3 .5

billion. So either he was directly
involved in it or had some connection to

individual or group of individuals who
were behind it.

Though defense attorneys have argued the
government complaint reveals

significant holes, a judge granted a
request to waive their client's right to

speedy trial.

A sign both sides may be working out a
plea agreement.

Lichtenstein and Morgan may have at
least one bargaining chip, or rather 7

That's the amount of bitcoins the
government says they believe the couple

controls in hidden accounts linked to
the hack.

They're now worth $146 million.

This is an important case for the
Justice Department because it's a

setter. The message to criminals is
clear.

Cryptocurrency is not a safe haven.

We can and we will follow the money no
matter what form it takes.

Crypto is not going away. We know that.
It's certainly going to fluctuate. It's

going to have its ups and downs.

But for so long, these spaces were seen
as lawless.

This changes that.

Ilya Lichtenstein remains in federal
custody in Alexandria, Virginia.

He declined an interview request,
writing, I am very familiar with

greed. In fact, I'm a big fan of the
show.

On advice of counsel, I cannot comment
on the case while it is ongoing.

Rest assured, I will have a lot more to
say once the case has been resolved.

And as for the crocodile of Wall Street,
Heather Morgan is on house arrest, a

mud puddle of her own making, with
strict limits on Internet usage.

And so, while much of her social media
remains online for everyone to see, She

can't shape her own story.

And for Razzlecon, that may be the worst
punishment of all.

You can completely create your own
destiny with words and software. So

for now. Be sure to follow to see more
videos.

Razzle dazzle.