The shutdown of the darknet marketplace AlphaBay back in 2017 allowed the authorities to access records of transfers related to assets stolen from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2016 to accounts on other services.
Thanks to this information, law enforcement officials were able to identify Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan as the hackers, who as we have recently learned, have been arrested for the attack.
Subscribe to our Telegram channel to stay up to date on the latest crypto and blockchain news.
As we reported yesterday, the US authorities have charged them with conspiracy to launder 119,754 BTC. Notably, the seizure of 94,636 BTC (about $3.6 billion) could be the largest in history.
Apparently, the couple used different mechanisms to launder the funds, such as using accounts based on fictitious identity documents, moving the stolen funds in a series of small amounts in thousands of transactions, using software for automation, etc.
Access more than 50 of the world's financial markets directly from your EXANTE account – including NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange and Tokyo Stock Exchange.
According to Elliptic, over the past five years, the attackers managed to move and launder about 21% of the stolen BTC: from AlphaBay, the funds were sent to exchange accounts, as well as to Wassabi, JoinMarket and the Hydra darknet marketplace.