Woman Involved in Bitfinex Hack is Released on $3M Bail

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A District of Columbia court has released Heather Morgan, accused of laundering assets stolen from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, on $3 million bail. Her husband and the second person involved in the case, Ilya Lichtenstein, has been left in custody by Judge Beryl Howell, CoinDesk reports.

On February 8, Lichtenstein and Morgan were arrested by the authorities accused of laundering 119,754 BTC stolen from Bitfinex in 2016. The authorities announced they had confiscated $ 3.6 billion. They face up to 25 years in prison.

The defendants were not released on $8 million bail, despite a ruling from the Justice of the Peace for the Southern District of New York that gave them such a right. At the hearing, the prosecutor said the couple had access to $330 million that they could use to escape.

At the February 14 meeting, Howell supported this position. According to the prosecution, Liechtenstein and Morgan were preparing to leave for Russia or Ukraine.

As evidence, the prosecutor’s office cited the results of the search. Law enforcement officers found the registration of phone numbers and financial accounts during a trip to Ukraine in 2019, as well as files on Liechtenstein’s computer.