An alleged fraudster dubbed The Crocodile of Wall Street over claims she laundered $4.5 billion in has been freed on bail  – but her husband has been ordered to stay in jail.  

Heather Morgan was freed by a judge Monday, pending trial by a federal court.

But her husband Ilya Lichtenstein remains behind bars due to prosecutors’ fears that he could seek immunity in , where he is also a citizen.

Judge Beryl Howell said on Monday that 31-year-old Morgan, referred as ‘Razzlekahn’ due to her rapping background, was no longer held in custody after the government deemed that she wasn’t as involved in the planning of the alleged crimes as her 34-year-ld husband, darkmarket list Ilya Lichtenstein, who was largely in control of the funds. 

The judge also considered Morgan’s health issues as a factor, after she had recently had surgery to remove a lump in her breast.

With follow-up appointments expected, she will be closely monitored with an ankle bracelet GPS monitor while she is under house arrest. 

Morgan has also been given restrictions on computer use, and a ban on carrying out cryptocurrency transactions. 

The defense told the court that both defendants would guarantee to appear for all remaining court dates, and pointed out that both of their families, who were in court, were willing to bet their homes on it.

However, Howell finally ruled that there would be a significant ‘flight risk’ for Lichtenstein and agreed with federal prosecutors who insisted that just a portion of the millions in cryptocurrency that the couple stole could buy a new house or ‘buy each of their parents a private island.’ 

The judge also shared her concerns that Lichtenstein, who is a dual citizen of the United States and Russia, could seek refuge in a eastern European country, where he could possibly be granted immunity.

Federal prosecutors also revealed that Lichtenstein had a file on his computer titled ‘passport ideas,’ which included several darknet market lists vendors that sell passports, bank cards and other forms of identification. 

The New York couple was arrested earlier in February after they conspired to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange platform, dark market url darknet market onion and currently estimated at $4.5 billion. 

Both are accused of using several techniques to launder Bitcoin, including using fake identifies to create accounts; coding computer programs to execute fast, automated transactions; depositing stolen funds in several accounts across one crypto exchange to cover their previous transactions; converting Bitcoin to other forms of cryptocurrency; and dark markets creating U.S.-based business accounts to wire their funds and make them seem legitimate. 

Over five years, a hacker allegedly laundered 119,754 bitcoin through 2,000 transactions on Bitfinex’s website before transferring the crypto funds into Lichtenstein’s digital wallet. 

The couple could face up to 25 years years behind bars if found guilty. 

Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange registered in the British Virgin Islands.

In August 2016, hackers were able to breach its security firewall before stealing about 120,000 bitcoin from its customers.

The amount that was stolen was worth roughly $70 million at the time, when the price of bitcoin was around $600.

At the time, Bitfinex announced to its customers that they would lose 36 percent of their funds to compensate for the losses from the incident.

It also created special digital tokens that were able to keep track of customers’ losses. 

Some of the tokens could exchanged for shares of iFinex, the company that operates Bitfinex, while other tokens could be redeemed if the stolen bitcoins were recovered in the future.

The US Department of Justice announced that it would create a special judicial process for victims of the hack to reclaim their losses.

The hackers have never been identified. 

Morgan and Lichtenstein were arrested by federal prosecutors of laundering the bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex, but they are not being accused for actually stealing the bitcoin in the hack.

Authorities were able to recover $3.6B after seizing couple’s private keys to digital wallets after their arrest earlier this month. 

The post Wife freed while husband jailed pending trial for Bitcoin laundering appeared first on The News Max.

Investigators say the “BoysTown” platform, which operated on the darknet market, had more than 400,000 members.

Pedophiles used it to exchange and watch pornography of children and toddlers, dark websites most of them boys, from all over the world. It was shut down in April 2021.

The suspects are aged between 41 and 65, Frankfurt prosecutors said in a statement. Their names weren’t released, in keeping with German privacy rules.

They face charges that include spreading and producing child pornography and sexual abuse of children.

Two of the men are accused of building the platform in 2019. One of them also allegedly sexually abused two children. The other was extradited in October from Paraguay, darknet market lists where he had lived for darknet market marketplace a few years.

A third suspect is accused of acting as an administrator and moderator for dark market onion the platform as well as sexually abusing two children. Prosecutors say that the fourth man was “one of the most active users” of the platform.

All four are in custody.

The Frankfurt state court now has to decide whether the case will go to trial and if so when. Prosecutors said investigations of other suspected members of the platform are continuing.

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What do Dunkin’ Donuts, darknet market marketplace Fortnite, Sprint and dark market link the Dow Jones company all have in common? They’ve all suffered from massive hacks in 2019 alone.

After every data breach, dark web sites victim data often surfaces on the encrypted “hidden” internet known as the , a network of sites that can only be accessed with . dark markets 2023 web markets operate like the ecommerce websites we shop on every day, but often trade in illicit goods like drugs, weapons and stolen data.

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Finding our personal data on the dark web market web was far too…

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Because so many companies now capture and darknet markets store personal information, hacking has become a profitable profession, said Terbium Labs vice president of research Emily Wilson. One hacker known as Gnosticplayers has allegedly leaked over 840 million user records. His most recent dump of 26.42 million records .

“The dark web has provided the raw materials that these fraudsters need to build out scalable criminal empires,” said Wilson. “We’re talking about identity theft of millions of people, including children.”

Though the stakes are high for

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Ilya ‘Dutch’ Lichtenstein, 34, and his wife, darknet market lists Heather Rhiannon Morgan, 31, who raps under the name Razzlekhan, were arrested on Tuesday in Manhattan on federal charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Federal law enforcement officials said they recovered roughly $3.6 billon in cryptocurrency linked to the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange whose systems were breached nearly six years ago.  

Lichtenstein and Morgan live on Wall Street in lower Manhattan. He is a citizen of both  and the United States and the co-founder of an online marketing firm.

Morgan, a rapper and former Forbes contributor, describes herself as ‘an expert in persuasion, social engineering, dark market onion and game theory’ and in one of her songs, declared herself the ‘Crocodile of Wall Street.’ 

‘I’m many things, a rapper, an economist, a journalist, a writer, a CEO, darknet site and a dirty, dirty, dirty dirty h*,’ she raps in her 2019 single, Versace Bedouin.

‘When she’s not reverse-engineering black markets to think of better ways to combat fraud and cybercrime, she enjoys rapping and designing streetwear fashion,’ her  reads. 

The August 2016 Bitfinex hack itself was one of the largest crypto heists ever recorded – so massive that news of the theft knocked 20 percent off Bitcoin’s value at the time. 

Lichtenstein and Morgan are thus far not charged directly with perpetrating the hack, but rather with receiving and laundering the stolen funds. The case was filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C.

It was unclear who will be representing the couple in the criminal case and whether they had an attorney to speak on their behalf.

They were due to appear in federal court in Manhattan at 3 p.m. on Tuesday. 

The couple is accused of conspiring to launder 119,754 bitcoin that was stolen, after a hacker attacked Bitfinex and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions.

Justice Department officials said the transactions at the time were valued at $71 million in Bitcoin, but with the rise in the currency’s value, it is now valued at over $4.5 billion.

‘As the complaint alleges, the FBI and federal prosecutors were able to trace the movement of Bitcoin from this hack,’ said Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

He added that the money moved through a major darknet sites exchange tied to a host of crimes, as well as cryptocurrency addresses tied to child sexual abuse materials.

Lichtenstein and dark web sites Morgan are facing charges of conspiring to commit money laundering, as well as to defraud the United States.

Prosecutors said on Tuesday the illegal proceeds were spent on a variety of things, from gold and non-fungible tokens to ‘absolutely mundane things such as purchasing a Walmart gift card for $500.’

Bitfinex said in a statement that it was to working with the Department of Justice to ‘establish our rights to a return of the stolen bitcoin.’

‘We have been cooperating extensively with the DOJ since its investigation began and will continue to do so,’ the company said. 

Bitfinex said it intends to provide further updates on its efforts to obtain a return of the stolen bitcoin as and when those updates are available. 

Tuesday’s criminal complaint came more than four months after Monaco announced the department was launching a new National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, which is comprised of a mix of anti-money laundering and cybersecurity experts.

Cyber criminals who attack companies, municipalities and individuals with ransomware often demand payment in the form of cryptocurrency.

In one high-profile example last year, hackers caused a widespread gas shortage on the U.S. East Coast when by using encryption software called DarkSide to launch a cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline.

The Justice Department later recovered some $2.3 million in cryptocurrency ransom that Colonial paid to the hackers.

Cases like these demonstrate that the Justice Department ‘can follow money across the blockchain, just as we have always followed it within the traditional financial system,’ said Kenneth Polite, assistant attorney general of the department’s Criminal Division. 

Justice Department officials say that though the proliferation of cryptocurrency and virtual currency exchanges represent innovation, the trend has also been accompanied by money laundering, ransomware and other crimes

‘Today´s arrests, and the Department´s largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,’ Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. 

‘In a futile effort to maintain digital anonymity, the defendants laundered stolen funds through a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions. Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the department once again showed how it can and will follow the money, no matter the form it takes.’  

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The deal between Eric Eoin Marques and Justice Department prosecutors is designed to satisfy a judge in Maryland who rejected their original agreement, which called for darkmarket 2023 a prison sentence of 15 to 21 years.

Defense attorneys outlined the new terms in a court filing on Friday.

They said a 21-year prison sentence would be “fair and just” for Marques.

Marques’ lawyers also urged U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang to impose a condition of supervised release that would allow Marques to live in Ireland, his home nation, after he completes his prison sentence.

Marques, dark market link who was 35 in May, dark market 2023 is scheduled to enter his updated plea agreement and be sentenced next week.

Chuang isn´t bound by the sentencing recommendation.

During a hearing in May, Chuang described the initial plea agreement as “too flawed” and said he was inclined to give Marques a longer sentence than 15 to 21 years. The judge criticized a provision of the plea deal that wouldn´t give Marques credit for six years he spent in custody in Ireland while fighting extradition after his 2013 arrest in Dublin. Chuang said he can´t tell the federal Bureau of Prisons to refrain from counting those years when Marques likely is entitled to get credit for that time.

“It´s not going to be 21 minus 6 to 15. That´s not going to happen,” the judge said.

The new plea deal calls for Marques to receive credit for the time served.

Marques, a dual citizen of the U.S.

and Ireland, pleaded guilty in February 2020 to creating and operating a web hosting service called “Freedom Hosting” on the darknet market between 2008 and darkmarket 2023 2013.

The darknet market is part of the internet but hosted within an encrypted network. It is accessible only through anonymity-providing tools.

Marques’ service enabled users to anonymously access millions of illicit images and videos, many depicting the rape and torture of infants and toddlers.

Investigators found what appeared to be more than 8.5 million images and videos of child pornography on the Freedom Hosting server, according to a court filing that accompanied Marques´ guilty plea.

Marques was living in Ireland at the time of the offenses.

He was extradited to Maryland in March 2019. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to advertise child pornography.

In an April court filing, a prosecutor said a government witness was prepared to testify that investigators had identified Marques as the largest purveyor of child pornography in the world and that he had made approximately $3.6 million in U.S.

currency from his servers.

Marques’ lawyers say he made money from his legitimate web-hosting services, not Freedom Hosting.

“Though the contents of many of the dark websites it hosted were despicable and unlawful, the evidence shows that Freedom Hosting was a free service until just before Mr. Marques´ arrest,” they wrote in Friday’s filing.

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