Justice Department arrests two for allegedly laundering $4.5B from Bitfinex hack

The U.S. Department of Justice arrested a couple who allegedly conspired to launder $4.5B of cryptocurrency stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange. So far, law enforcement has recovered more than $3.6B in crypto linked to the hack, the DOJ said in a statement. "Today, federal law enforcement demonstrates once again that we can follow money through the blockchain, and that we will not allow cryptocurrency to be a safe haven for money laundering or a zone of lawlessness within our financial system," said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr., of the DOJ's Criminal Division. Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan were arrested for the alleged conspiracy. The couple is accused of conspiring to launder 119,754 bitcoin (BTC-USD) that were stolen from Bitfinex's platform after a hacker broke into the exchange's systems and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions. The criminal complaint alleges that