US: FBI recovers $3.6 billion worth of stolen bitcoins

The FBI recovered $3.6 billion in stolen bitcoins in 2016. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

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The US Department of Justice has recovered nearly $3.6 billion in bitcoins after the arrest of a couple accused of attempting to launder stolen cryptocurrency.

This is a record entry. 

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With our correspondent in Washington,

He presents himself as a “

”.

His wife calls herself "Razzlekhan", a pseudonym under which she has posted several rap videos, in which she describes herself as the " 

 ".

For FBI investigators, it was mostly people who tried to launder more than 100,000 stolen bitcoins in 2016 from the Hong Kong-based platform Bitfinex.

At the time, the amount of loot was already 71 million dollars but today, what is left is worth 50 times more.

These bitcoins ended up in the account of Ilya Lichtenstein, a 35-year-old Russian-American, through complex transactions.

Nearly 25,000 units were used on accounts opened under false identities, to invest in much more traditional products such as gold or more simply for current expenses.

The authorities are not commenting on the name of the initial hacker, but they are already calling on the victims of the theft to come forward to recover their due.

Bitcoin has existed since 2008. It attracts big names in finance but also allows, according to the authorities, criminal networks to make their financial flows more opaque.

This unprecedented seizure makes the Ministry of Justice say that it will not let cryptocurrencies become a lawless zone. 

►Also read: Is Bitcoin the monetary future of Africa?

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