Crocodile of Wall Street: Amateur rapper accused in $4.5bn Bitfinex hack
Heather Morgan, one half of the couple arrested in connection with the theft of $4.5bn worth of Bitcoin, has a bizarre online presence.
The recovery of $3.6bn worth of stolen Bitcoin by US law enforcement and shock arrest of New York couple Ilya Lichtenstein and Morgan has led to questions about the masterminds supposedly involved in one of the largest crypto thefts to date. The couple, who appeared before a New York court yesterday, stand accused of conspiring to launder almost 120,000 BTC ($4.5bn) which was stolen in a 2016 heist targeting crypto exchange Bitfinex.
It turns out the couple, who are both tech entrepreneurs and business owners by day, pursue a number of unusual hobbies. Lichtenstein, who goes by the name of “Dutch,” is an “occasional magician,” while Morgan is a “surrealist artist” and “fashion designer” in addition to being an amateur rapper who self-describes as the “crocodile of Wall Street.”
Morgan, who goes by the rap name “Razzlekhan,” has also written regular articles for business magazine Forbes, with her latest bio stating that she is an “expert in persuasion, social engineering, and game theory.”
While many of Razzlekhan’s YouTube videos have been removed overnight, videos seen by City PM feature the aspiring rap artist giving fashion advice to people who want to “bedazzle” their clothing as well as making music about life as an entrepreneur.
“I’m many things, a rapper, an economist, a journalist, a writer, a CEO, and a dirty, dirty, dirty dirty h*,” she raps in the 2019 single, Versace Bedouin.
In her 2021 song “Vacuum Cleaner”, Razzlekhan raps about toxic individuals who suck away energy. “B**** you suck like a vacuum cleaner… my friends’ list about to get leaner… think I need to do a spring, cleaner… ‘cause you suck like a vacuum cleaner,” she sings.
Bitfinex: the case
According to court documents, Morgan conspired with her husband to launder 119,754 stolen bitcoins that were sent to a digital wallet controlled by Lichtenstein after the exchange was hacked.
Over the last five years, approximately 25,000 of those stolen bitcoin were transferred out of Lichtenstein’s wallet via a complicated money laundering process, with some of the stolen funds being deposited into financial accounts jointly controlled by the surrealist rapper.
The remainder of the stolen funds, comprising more than 94,000 bitcoin, remained in the original wallet used to conduct the attack, with law enforcement announcing the recovery of the crypto yesterday.
Read more: Two charged in connection with £3.8bn hack of crypto exchange Bitfinex