10 sats \ 4 replies \ @cryptocoin 8 Feb 2022 \ on: Elliptic Analysis: New York Husband and Wife Arrested for Allegedly Laundering $5 Billion in Bitcoin Stolen from Bitfinex in 2016 bitcoin
Posts from elsewhere on this topic:
The Largest Financial Seizure Ever' - DoJ Recovers Billions In Bitcoin From 2016 Bitfinex Hack, Couple Arrested
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/largest-financial-seizure-ever-doj-announces-billions-bitcoin-2016-bitfinex-hack-recovered
The criminal complaint alleges that Lichtenstein and Morgan employed numerous sophisticated laundering techniques, including using fictitious identities to set up online accounts; utilizing computer programs to automate transactions, a laundering technique that allows for many transactions to take place in a short period of time; depositing the stolen funds into accounts at a variety of virtual currency exchanges and darknet markets and then withdrawing the funds, which obfuscates the trail of the transaction history by breaking up the fund flow; converting bitcoin to other forms of virtual currency, including anonymity-enhanced virtual currency (AEC), in a practice known as “chain hopping”; and using U.S.-based business accounts to legitimize their banking activity.
I think I would have had my paper returned to me in grammar class if had I written a single sentence that was that long.
I thnk I would get kicked off Crypto Twitter if I referred to Monero, for instance, as being an "anonymity-enhanced virtual currency (AEC)".
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Any info on how this got tracked? Ie. hops between Btc and Monero?
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There has been some chatter by those sleuthing the sleuthers, but I don't follow it closely.
What the authorities and these chain analysis orgs tell us they did (which sounds like magic) is certainly in actuality where they had KYC exchange data and high value amounts that didn't correspond with that person's story (also known as a lifestyle audit). So they then observe more closely and if more shady stuff found, then they start to make links, very likely using data collection methods like subpeonaing the couple's accounts and hacking their devices (if needed) or whatever, to know if their suspicions were actually on to something. Just that in this case it, allegedly, led to a monster size theft.
Who knows.
Moral of the story, if you make yourself a target, you will be targeted.
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Another article:
DOJ Recovers $3.6 Billion In Bitcoin Stolen In Bitfinex Hack
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/doj-recovers-36-billion-in-bitcoin-stolen-in-bitfinex-hack
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