-
Ilya
Lichtenstein
has
gone
from
high-profile
defendant
to
government
witness,
testifying
against
a
mixing
service
that
he
used
to
hide
laundered
assets
from
the
Bitfinex
hack. -
He
told
a
jury
that
Bitcoin
Fog
–
a
darknet
favorite
–
wasn’t
as
good
as
some
of
the
other
mixers
he
used.
Ilya
Lichtenstein,
one
of
the
crypto
industry’s
most
high-stakes
criminals,
is
now
helping
federal
prosecutors
in
their
case
against
Bitcoin
Fog,
one
of
the
mixing
services
he
said
he’d
used
to
conceal
assets.
Lichtenstein
–
known
for
the
multi-billion
Bitfinex
hack
of
bitcoins
worth
$3.6
billion
when
he
pleaded
guilty
to
money
laundering
last
year
–
appeared
this
week
in
a
Washington,
D.C.,
trial
of
the
accused
operator
of
the
mixing
service
associated
with
darkweb
criminality,
according
to
a
report
from
Bloomberg
News.
Lichtenstein,
who
had
been
charged
and
pleaded
guilty
alongside
his
wife,
Heather
“Razzlekhan”
Morgan,
told
the
jury
that
he
used
various
mixers
including
Bitcoin
Fog
to
“obfuscate”
the
funds
from
the
Bitfinex
hack,
but
it
wasn’t
his
major
method
of
laundering,
according
to
Bloomberg.
He
said
he
moved
on
from
that
particular
mixer
once
he
discovered
other
services
“suited
his
purposes
better.”
The
U.S.
Department
of
Justice’s
seizure
of
the
billions
in
crypto
in
the
Bitfinex
case
was
unprecedented.
In
the
Bitcoin
Fog
case,
U.S.
authorities
had
arrested
and
charged
Roman
Sterlingov,
a
dual
Russian-Swedish
national,
with
money
laundering
in
his
operation
of
the
mixing
service
in
2021.
He’s
now
on
trial
in
that
case.
