Heather Morgan is a self-described serial entrepreneur and prolific writer who goes by the rap moniker “Razzlekhan. She has just been accused of money laundering and conspiracy in connection with the 2016 Bitfinex hack.
Heather Morgan, a 31-year-old New Yorker, describes herself as a serial entrepreneur, prolific writer, and an irreverent humorous rapper. She investing in high-growth B2B software startups.
Her LinkedIn profile, however, makes no mention of her supposed capacity to help launder hijacked bitcoin.
Accordingly, Morgan was nabbed by FBI officials yesterday morning. Her husband Ilya Lichtenstein is allegedly conspiring to launder cryptocurrency. This is in connection with the 2016 Bitfinex hack. It resulted in a theft of 119,756 Bitcoin from the crypto exchange.
During a court hearing in New York on Tuesday, the couple adamantly declared their innocence. Moreover, they were freed on multi-million dollar bonds.
In August 2016, the 119,756 BTC stolen from Bitfinex worth $72 million is now worth more than $5.1 billion. Since the 2016 crime, individuals associated with the stolen money have moved minimal quantities of BTC in separate transactions. As a result, the remainder of the assets was undisturbed.
There were 25,000 BTC linking to financial accounts that Lichtenstein and Morgan are maintaining as per the Department of Justice. They were able to inspect files holding the wallet’s secret keys after obtaining a search warrant. Special agents were able to gain access and seize more than 94,000 bitcoins from Morgan and Lichtenstein. The value is at $3.6 billion at the time.
According to the Department of Justice lawsuit, they are charging them with money laundering and defrauding the United States, but not with carrying out the hack. The first charge has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The second carries a maximum sentence of 5 years.
Weirdness Abounds
While Lichtenstein appears to be a typical tech entrepreneur, Morgan has a strong social media presence, with TikToks exhibiting art pieces inspired by her Synesthesia and music videos like “WEIRD AF.”
People don’t want to miss them, which include gems like “I’m the grandmother you want to bang,” as Morgan raps while soaking in a bathtub full of glitter during her song “Versace Bedouin.”
How does one get from being a rapper to being the subject of an FBI hacking investigation?
It started when her career as an economist throughout Asia and the Middle East, notably post-revolutionary Egypt following the Arab Spring, according to her LinkedIn profile.
They were able to absorb her in the tech startup culture when she returned to California and eventually moved to Silicon Valley. They were able to create SalesFolk, a B2B company that specialized in cold emails, in 2009.
Despite the fact that she didn’t begin rapping until 2018, she had clearly been practicing her lines for some time. “Be a goat, not a sheep!” says the company’s slogan. That’s a wonder it didn’t come straight from one of her songs because it “has just the appropriate combination of silliness and mysterious philosophical reference.”
Meanwhile, she was accumulating bylines in business and tech publications, such as her Forbes article “Should your company be concerned about being blacklisted?” in December 2017 and her seemingly well-informed Forbes piece “Experts Share Tips To Protect Your Business From Cybercriminals” in June 2020. Inc Magazine features her, where she has a comprehensive author profile.
