Ramazan Eles 
On February 28th, the United States government executed a transfer of $922 million worth of Bitcoin from two cryptocurrency wallets, which held funds seized from Bitfinex back in 2016. This move coincided with Bitcoin breaking the $60,000 threshold for the first time in over two years.
The initial transfer, totaling 1 Bitcoin ($60,200 during the transaction), occurred at 3:39 pm on February 28th. Shortly after, the government-labeled wallet carried out a second transaction worth 2,817 Bitcoin ($172.74 million), followed by a third transaction worth 0.01 Bitcoin ($613.35), and a fourth transaction worth 12,267 Bitcoin ($748.46 million), as per Arkham Intelligence data.
The government’s seizure of these funds dates back to 2016 when Bitfinex was hacked, resulting in the loss of approximately 119,754 BTC, valued at over $7.4 billion at current market prices.
This transfer came on the heels of Ilya Lichtenstein’s court appearance in Washington. Lichtenstein, a hacker involved in the theft and laundering of over $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin from the Bitfinex exchange, disclosed details of the operation to a jury on February 27th. He admitted to having access to Bitfinex’s systems for several months and hacking individual accounts at exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken.
The US government seized $3.6 billion in assets
Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, were apprehended in February 2022, accused of conspiring to launder $4.5 billion in hacked Bitcoin. The US government seized $3.6 billion in assets, marking the largest financial seizure in history. An additional $475 million worth of Bitcoin was seized on August 3, 2022.
In August 2023, Lichtenstein and his wife pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy related to the Bitfinex hack. Also, Amazon has reportedly begun production on a film about the Bitfinex money laundering saga, drawing inspiration from a 2022 article in The New York Times that dubbed the couple “Bitcoin’s Bonnie and Clyde.”