Two people have been accused of trying to launder billions of dollars worth of bitcoin stolen from the 2016 Bitfinex hack, according to Bloomberg.
Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan appeared in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday after being arrested at 7 a.m. in New York. The US government says it has seized about $4.5 billion in crypto from the pair, the largest amount seized in history. The two are said to have attempted to launder 119,754 bitcoins.
Initially, the government asked a judge to deny them bail. The prosecutor said that each of them can receive 20 years in prison, so they have reason to flee. The judge said he would set bail, and prosecutors demanded $100 million, an amount one lawyer called “ridiculous.”
The judge eventually set Morgan’s bail at $3 million and asked her parents to register her house as bail. The guarantee for Liechtenstein is $5 million.