Their plot to steal $70M in bitcoin succeeded wildly.
There was just one contingency they failed to plan for. From MarketWatch:
When hackers made off with approximately 120,000 bitcoin from the Bitfinex currency exchange in 2016, it was worth around $71 million. With the wild upswing in the value of the cryptocurrency, it would now be worth around $4.5 billion.
That presented serious problems for the couple, who have allegedly struggled for the past five years to launder the ever-increasing pile of money, prosecutors said. The pair had appeared to have managed to launder only about 20% of it, according to court papers. Investigators say they seized about 90,000 bitcoin worth around $3.6 billion last week from virtual wallets controlled by the couple.
“As the value of the money grew, this likely became a far more complex scheme than they believed they were getting into when it started,” said attorney Rachel Fiset, of Zweiback, Fiset and Coleman, who specializes in complex financial fraud cases. “It was going to catch up to them at some point because the pot just kept growing. You can’t just hold a few billion dollars for five years unnoticed.”
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