Like every other area of life, the crypto market is also a space for hackers and scams. On February 1st, 2022, close to $2.5 billion was moved from hack wallets related to Bitfinex in 2016, transactions review revealed that ca. 90,000 BTC were moved to one address. The total value of the moved BTC was $3.6 billion. The hackers were identified and caught within a week of this transaction,
The US Justice Department confiscated the $3.6 billion worth of crypto and arrested two people. These people, who were identified as Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein were caught when federal authorities followed the money trail on the blockchain. Some of the money was recovered in 2019 and the recent find and recovery shocked the blockchain community. Many didn’t think it was possible to find and get the money back after 5 years.
Emin Sirer of Ava Labs was of the opinion that Heather Morgan may be of Turkish origin. She was the richest Turk on the planet for a short while. He heaped praise on authorities for getting the funds back.
Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO had two questions about the recovery. He wanted to know if Bitfinex made money or lost it due to the hack. He also asked if the BTC was recovered, how would it be split with holders of LEO? Would people who lost money accept LEO when the hack happened and did they go on to sell the LEO? Another crypto investor/entrepreneur couldn’t believe that one of the perpetrators was a contributor to Forbes magazine.
